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remix_reduxTitle: Helix (The Power to Revolutionize the World Remix)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
redshoeson
Summary: Though River sleeps, she finds no peace in dreams.
Fandom: Firefly
Character: River Tam
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Disclaimer: Whedon is our king; FF/S and all characters within are his, not mine.
Original story: Helix byshetiger/tigerlady
Notes: Thanks and praise tolnbw for hand-holding and Jayne-hat-making and all other matters beta-related. Also thanks to my partner, R, who said, "Don't angst about it - sit down and write!" LYL-YC.
Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: “Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before.”
“Well, now that we have seen each other,” said the Unicorn, “if you believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?”
–Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll
Even in the time of Earth That Was, warriors had to sleep. The warriors found respite from battle in the place behind their eyelids, though they were often aided by a weapon in hand.
Though River sleeps, she finds no peace in dreams. She fights whether her eyes are open or closed. The enemy attacks her at her core, tearing away at her bit by bit. It forces emotions into her that she does not recognize as her own. She is a living confessional; she can hear everything.
On this day, River hears only Simon’s voice as he shakes her shoulders. She listens for the cacophony that usually occupies her mind, but Simon’s is the sole voice she hears.
“Mei mei,” he says, “time to start the day.”
River opens her mouth to say something, but what she says is not what she had intended. Out of her mouth come the words, “All right, I’m getting up.”
The fluidity of the phrase coupled with the quietude startles her, and she sits up in bed. Her hand flutters to her mouth and her fingers explore her face. Yes, she has her lips, all her teeth, her chin and nose. It occurs to her then that she does not know what she hopes to find. She drops her hand back to the bedspread as if it no longer performs a function pleasing to her.
“Come on, sleepyhead,” Simon says. “If you go back to sleep, you’ll miss breakfast.” He steps over to the doorway and peers out. River watches him and wonders why he looks more like her brother than he has in all the weeks since they arrived on Serenity. His tone is the same, his mannerisms seem routine enough, and yet he is more Simon now than he was the day before, or the day before that.
Simon turns to her. “On second thought, we probably did miss breakfast. Well, hopefully they left something for us.”
River does not trust herself to speak again, so she rouses herself without words and pulls a cotton dress over her head. The purple and pink material is soft against her skin, but as she admires herself in the mirror, she wonders why nothing is wrong with the fabric. She feels as though there should be a tear somewhere. Reaching down to examine the fabric more closely, she sees Simon extend a hand to her.
Simon’s fingers wrap around hers. “Let’s go.”
It’s in the way he smiles at her, the way his eyes shimmer in the low lighting of the ship, she thinks. That is what’s different. Her head begins to ache in an uncomfortably familiar way. Nothing is different about Simon, she tells herself. Nothing is different about anything.
With lips shut tightly as a banker’s purse, River lets Simon lead her to the Dining Area, watching the walls around her for signs as yet unseen. They should be watching her, she thinks. These walls have eyes. She waits for them to blink at her, but they remain still and gray. Their immobility is eerie and unsettling, and she focuses instead on the sameness of Simon in front of her.
At the dining room table, they find Jayne sitting alone, polishing his second favorite gun, Maggie. His eyes dart from Simon to River before he addresses River. “Hey there, Sweetheart. Lookin’ mighty nice today.”
She parts her lips, unsure of what will come out, and says, “Xiè xiè.”
The simplicity of what she has said delights her, and she curtsies. Jayne smiles back and her, all teeth, and she thinks of the Big Bad Wolf.
“Big plans for today?” Jayne says.
Simon gives River a little shove towards the table and she inches forward. “Tell him, mei mei.”
River searches for something to say. She isn’t surprised when Simon assists her. “Wash is letting her shadow him, sort of a tutorial.”
Jayne puts his rag down. “Well now, that’s somethin’. About time little sister found her place on this boat.”
“Exactly.” Simon gestures back to River. “All this potential being wasted.”
“Simon,” River says, and this time the words are hers, but the tone is not. She sounds playful, enticing. She wonders why this makes her feel nostalgic. “I thought we were going to eat breakfast?”
Simon is as willing to please as a puppy dog. He nods and hurries to the back of the room where the supplies are kept.
Finding herself in the middle of the room, River sits down across from Jayne, admiring his efficiency as he cleans the gun. She lifts a finger to point out a spot that he has missed, but something prevents her from lifting her hand. She doesn’t remember picking anything up, but then she was distracted by the lack of voices in her head.
Her head begins to pound when she sees the knife in her hand. When did she pick this up? Where did it come from? River looks around to see if Jayne has noticed, but his eyes are fixed on his gun. Simon, too, is innocent; he’s still in the back fixing their breakfast.
When River looks back down at her hand, she realizes that she is standing in the entrance to the Dining Hall. Her hair is matted in front of her eyes and she can feel the points of her teeth sitting on her bottom lip as she smiles.
“What ya doing here?” Jayne says, and she sees that he is readying his gun now, preparing to cock and load. Across from Jayne, she sees herself sitting at the table. That part of herself does not notice her. Instead, it says, “Jayne, you missed a spot.”
“Did I?” says Jayne, and River is sitting across from him again, pointing out the spot he has missed. “Woulda been a darn shame to put ‘er away dirty.”
Simon returns with their breakfast. Despite the fact that River cannot place the taste, she eats it quickly. She has an appetite, and for some reason this pleases her to no end. She giggles and laughs with Simon and Jayne; their camaraderie is catching.
When both she and Simon have finished breakfast, she gathers up the dishes and puts them in the sink. There is a clink and River is surprised when it doesn’t wake her from this ethereal place. She waves goodbye to Jayne and he winks at her. A glow blossoms within her.
Simon walks a few paces ahead of her until he reaches the Infirmary. When he turns around, he raises his eyebrows as though surprised she’s there. “River, what are you doing?”
“Waiting for my meds,” says River. “Hurry up.”
“Meds?” Simon makes a face before saying, “I could give you some vitamins, I guess.”
“Simon, don’t be ridiculous,” says River. “Get the needle out.”
She climbs onto the exam table and sits with her legs before her, dangling over the side of the bed. Simon turns away from her and grabs a clean cloth from nearby. He begins cleaning the counter in long, wide swipes, covering every inch of the area.
River waits. She feels this is the right thing to do, that she needs to be treated.
She wonders what she needs to be treated for.
Shrugging, River hops down from the exam table and almost runs into Simon, as he is much closer to her than he was a moment ago. His lips on her forehead are warm, but it is his hand on her abdomen that makes her stomach turn.
“Sorry,” says River. Her palms sweat and she doesn’t know if she’s saying it because she bumped into him or to help him save face. She looks up at him.
Simon’s eyes are empty. “I know, mei mei. I know.”
“I’m going then,” someone says, and when River turns around, she sees herself still seated on the exam table. When she rotates to face Simon again, she finds herself back on the exam table. She hops off before the world has a chance to shift again.
“Bye,” says River, but her words ricochet back and forth against the walls, until they’re lost in the passage. She doesn’t look behind her to see if Simon is watching as she goes.
When River enters the cockpit, Wash is sitting in the pilot’s seat, his dinosaurs keeping him company on the console. His shirt is colorful and she’s reminded of clowns on Earth That Was. She smiles.
“Hello, young lass,” he says. “I was wondering what happened to you.”
“Sorry.” River bows to show him her respect. “I overslept.”
“Alas, happens to the best of us.” Wash nods towards the seat next to him. “Have a seat.”
The chair conforms to the shape of her body, welcoming her presence. She sits forward on it and presses her feet to the floor. The most surprising moment comes now, when she realizes she is wearing shoes. As with the weapon in her hand, she doesn’t remember being a part of her day, didn’t even know she possessed them. Did she borrow them from Zoë? Inara? River tries to imagine where the shoes came from. Was she sleeping in them?
Wash reaches out in front of her and adjusts the steering wheel. He smells like apples and exhaust, and she can see grease on his fingers. He doesn’t mess with Serenity as much as Kaylee does, but he gets his hands dirty often enough. Glancing down, she sees that he is wearing shoes. She wiggles her toes, expecting to find that she has imagined the footwear. She hasn’t.
“First,” says Wash, “you put your hands on the steering wheel.”
River puts on hand on each side of the wheel. She knows Serenity will speak to her; Serenity has always spoken to her. She wonders sometimes if it speaks to Mal, too, or Kaylee. Kaylee more than Mal, maybe, because Kaylee knows what Serenity likes and doesn’t like, how to encourage her when she’s given her all. No, River thinks, Serenity doesn’t speak to them, but probably wants to.
Holding herself very still, River waits for Serenity’s words to tickle her ears. It usually doesn’t take much. Serenity’s stream of consciousness is ceaseless; the difficulty comes in weeding them out from the other words. Today, however, there are no other words.
When Serenity does not whisper to her, she looks at Wash. “Am I doing this right?”
“Yep.” Wash faces forward, his hands loose on his steering wheel. He relaxes back into his seat, his feet light on the floor, as if he is testing the waters with a toe or two. “I like to think it takes a master to do it with exceptional style, but you’re doing all right for an amateur.”
She smiles at him. “Xiè xiè.”
There is a pounding at the back of her head, a thumping that seems to intensify the longer she waits for Serenity. In an attempt to relax, she sits back in her seat and takes a deep breath.
“What in the gorram name of hell did you do that for,” Jayne says, and River has to blink to remember that she is the cockpit with Wash, only she’s not, she’s back in the Dining Area and Jayne is striding towards her. He’s looking at her abdomen, at the place where Simon touched her earlier, or where she imagined he touched her. She’s not sure which.
Once again she is aware of the weight in her hand, the knife, but now she notices it’s bloody. She opens her mouth to ask whose blood it is, but a voice distant from her own says, “Matched set now.”
She hears herself cackle, feels her jaws open to allow the wicked sound to escape, but she’s not aware of sending her body the instructions to make these movements.
The floor is cold underneath her and now she can hear Serenity, its algorithms racing through her at a blinding pace. She reaches out to catch them, but they shoot through her fingers. Staring up at the ceiling, she realizes Jayne is holding her. She looks at him, the Big Bad Wolf, but his grin is gone. He looks hard and tough and angry. If he senses she’s studying him, he doesn’t let on.
From somewhere nearby she hears Wash say, “If you catch on any more quickly, you’ll be piloting Serenity in my place.”
She sees herself sitting there, tiny compared to the enormous entity that is Serenity, clutching the steering wheel. When her lips form words, she is back in her body and chair. “That’s impossible. There’s no better pilot in the ‘verse than you.”
“Someone say somethin’ about a better pilot than Wash?” Mal enters the Cockpit behind them, and they turn to face him. “Ain’t nobody better’n our man Wash.”
Mal looks wrong, too, in a way that is too right. His face is less haggard; his eyes have a shine to them that was missing before. It is as though someone has taken a string from the top of his head and pulled it up, both correcting his posture and giving him an air of pride that was lost somewhere along the way.
He looks good. Wrong, but good. River smiles at him. “That’s what I told him. Serenity wouldn’t let anyone else fly her.”
“Damn straight.” Mal slaps Wash’s chair. “Little sister speaks the truth.”
“Please, please,” says Wash, waving their words away. He cocks his head to one side and puts a hand under his chin. “Let’s talk more about me.”
“Let’s,” says someone, and the voice comes from everywhere.
The cockpit is empty save River. She looks up. “Serenity?”
A familiar laugh bounces from floor to ceiling and back again. “No, no, nothing quite so anthropomorphic as that.”
River frowns for the first time that day. She peers underneath the console and over it. “Where are you?”
The world blurs and sharpens before her, shapes morphing from one to another. The room has a soft scent of something flowery; the color red is ubiquitous. A woman River recognizes sits on the bed before her, brushing long dark hair.
“Inara?” says River.
Inara turns to face her. “No, just an imitation, I’m afraid.”
The bed seems predatory, but River is afraid of things changing again and so takes a step towards it. “What have you come for?”
“You.” Inara puts down her brush. “Think of me as… A spiritual guide, if you will.”
“Are you a spirit?”
“No, more a figment, really. You brought me here.”
“Me?” River’s eyebrows knot and she sits down. “I brought you?”
“Well, it really should have been Shepherd Book, but…”
River shivers. “Hair.”
Nodding, Inara says, “Exactly. So I’m here instead. I’m assuming a resemble a kind of mother figure for you, but that’s neither here nor there.”
“You’re here because time isn’t flowing the right way.”
Inara purses her shiny red lips. “It’s more than that. It’s…” She sighs and picks the brush back up. Her motions are so fluid that they seem ghostly, but this image is too eerie for River to process. She imagines instead that Inara is a fairy, and the too-fast motions are a part of her otherworldly aura.
Opening a drawer, she drops the brush in. “Think of it this way. When you were a child, you loved to play games, yes? This is a game, too, but you’re the only one playing.”
The banging in River’s head begins again with an intensity that makes her see stars. When her field of vision normalizes, she sees Inara sitting next to her on the bed.
“River,” says Inara. “River, stay with me here. None of this is real; you are causing it.”
“So?” River looks away from her, fighting the pain in her head and the new pain emerging from her insides. “So what if I’m the cause? All the people I’ve seen today are happy.”
Inara reaches up and touches River’s chin. Her fingers seem chilly where they should be warm. “You’re a brilliant woman, River, but you can’t stop the passage of time. While you spin your own story, the galaxy keeps moving.”
Lowering her voice, Inara says, “You’re hurting yourself, and you’re worrying everyone around you. In reality, no one on the ship is happy.”
“But,” says River, “they are happy here.” She gestures around her. “Jayne treats me like a person; Wash wants me to learn to be a pilot. Mal is whole again, and Simon…”
She looks away from Inara. “Simon isn’t afraid of me in this place.”
“River,” says Inara. “You know this isn’t right. If you were convinced that this world is the one you belong to, truly, I wouldn’t be here. You called me here.”
“Won’t,” says River, but she can feel her phrases begin to unravel. “Can’t make me.”
“River.” Inara brushes a tear from River’s cheek. “River, hush.”
“Shan’t.” River reaches out for words that make sense, phrases that sound whole. “Wouldn’t, couldn’t, won’t. Oughtn’t.”
The room begins to shake and swim in front of her, but River refuses to let it go. “Mine. You don’t get them all.”
“River,” says Inara, but her face is losing its color. She melts into the empty background.
River turns around, trying to catch a glimpse of the imitation of Inara and the world she was so comfortable. “Whore. Traitor.”
She imagines she hears Inara’s voice, but it is too quiet to make out. “Bitch,” she screams, and everything comes into focus. “No.”
Kaylee stands before her, eyes and mouth wide. She is lost, River thinks. In my world, she would have been a princess. In my world, we would all have lived happily ever after, kings and queens and ravens and hollyhocks.
River watches as Kaylee’s lip trembles and her body shakes. Shame overtakes River’s body, and she hurries to get away from Kaylee, to keep Kaylee from the harm she spreads like poison ivy.
“Sorry, so sorry,” says River.
In my world, there are fairy tales and daisy chains and pretty girls all in a row. In my world, no one is lost in the darkness.
River feels the tears only when they are falling down her cheeks. Kaylee has them, too. Matched set.
All the gold in the world can’t bring it back, River thinks, and she says, “Go away.”
When River is alone again, she rocks back and forth, hugging her knees, wishing for uninterrupted sleep into which she can escape. It’s all she has left.
END
Author:
redshoesonSummary: Though River sleeps, she finds no peace in dreams.
Fandom: Firefly
Character: River Tam
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Disclaimer: Whedon is our king; FF/S and all characters within are his, not mine.
Original story: Helix by
shetiger/tigerladyNotes: Thanks and praise to
lnbw for hand-holding and Jayne-hat-making and all other matters beta-related. Also thanks to my partner, R, who said, "Don't angst about it - sit down and write!" LYL-YC.Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: “Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before.”
“Well, now that we have seen each other,” said the Unicorn, “if you believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?”
–Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll
Even in the time of Earth That Was, warriors had to sleep. The warriors found respite from battle in the place behind their eyelids, though they were often aided by a weapon in hand.
Though River sleeps, she finds no peace in dreams. She fights whether her eyes are open or closed. The enemy attacks her at her core, tearing away at her bit by bit. It forces emotions into her that she does not recognize as her own. She is a living confessional; she can hear everything.
On this day, River hears only Simon’s voice as he shakes her shoulders. She listens for the cacophony that usually occupies her mind, but Simon’s is the sole voice she hears.
“Mei mei,” he says, “time to start the day.”
River opens her mouth to say something, but what she says is not what she had intended. Out of her mouth come the words, “All right, I’m getting up.”
The fluidity of the phrase coupled with the quietude startles her, and she sits up in bed. Her hand flutters to her mouth and her fingers explore her face. Yes, she has her lips, all her teeth, her chin and nose. It occurs to her then that she does not know what she hopes to find. She drops her hand back to the bedspread as if it no longer performs a function pleasing to her.
“Come on, sleepyhead,” Simon says. “If you go back to sleep, you’ll miss breakfast.” He steps over to the doorway and peers out. River watches him and wonders why he looks more like her brother than he has in all the weeks since they arrived on Serenity. His tone is the same, his mannerisms seem routine enough, and yet he is more Simon now than he was the day before, or the day before that.
Simon turns to her. “On second thought, we probably did miss breakfast. Well, hopefully they left something for us.”
River does not trust herself to speak again, so she rouses herself without words and pulls a cotton dress over her head. The purple and pink material is soft against her skin, but as she admires herself in the mirror, she wonders why nothing is wrong with the fabric. She feels as though there should be a tear somewhere. Reaching down to examine the fabric more closely, she sees Simon extend a hand to her.
Simon’s fingers wrap around hers. “Let’s go.”
It’s in the way he smiles at her, the way his eyes shimmer in the low lighting of the ship, she thinks. That is what’s different. Her head begins to ache in an uncomfortably familiar way. Nothing is different about Simon, she tells herself. Nothing is different about anything.
With lips shut tightly as a banker’s purse, River lets Simon lead her to the Dining Area, watching the walls around her for signs as yet unseen. They should be watching her, she thinks. These walls have eyes. She waits for them to blink at her, but they remain still and gray. Their immobility is eerie and unsettling, and she focuses instead on the sameness of Simon in front of her.
At the dining room table, they find Jayne sitting alone, polishing his second favorite gun, Maggie. His eyes dart from Simon to River before he addresses River. “Hey there, Sweetheart. Lookin’ mighty nice today.”
She parts her lips, unsure of what will come out, and says, “Xiè xiè.”
The simplicity of what she has said delights her, and she curtsies. Jayne smiles back and her, all teeth, and she thinks of the Big Bad Wolf.
“Big plans for today?” Jayne says.
Simon gives River a little shove towards the table and she inches forward. “Tell him, mei mei.”
River searches for something to say. She isn’t surprised when Simon assists her. “Wash is letting her shadow him, sort of a tutorial.”
Jayne puts his rag down. “Well now, that’s somethin’. About time little sister found her place on this boat.”
“Exactly.” Simon gestures back to River. “All this potential being wasted.”
“Simon,” River says, and this time the words are hers, but the tone is not. She sounds playful, enticing. She wonders why this makes her feel nostalgic. “I thought we were going to eat breakfast?”
Simon is as willing to please as a puppy dog. He nods and hurries to the back of the room where the supplies are kept.
Finding herself in the middle of the room, River sits down across from Jayne, admiring his efficiency as he cleans the gun. She lifts a finger to point out a spot that he has missed, but something prevents her from lifting her hand. She doesn’t remember picking anything up, but then she was distracted by the lack of voices in her head.
Her head begins to pound when she sees the knife in her hand. When did she pick this up? Where did it come from? River looks around to see if Jayne has noticed, but his eyes are fixed on his gun. Simon, too, is innocent; he’s still in the back fixing their breakfast.
When River looks back down at her hand, she realizes that she is standing in the entrance to the Dining Hall. Her hair is matted in front of her eyes and she can feel the points of her teeth sitting on her bottom lip as she smiles.
“What ya doing here?” Jayne says, and she sees that he is readying his gun now, preparing to cock and load. Across from Jayne, she sees herself sitting at the table. That part of herself does not notice her. Instead, it says, “Jayne, you missed a spot.”
“Did I?” says Jayne, and River is sitting across from him again, pointing out the spot he has missed. “Woulda been a darn shame to put ‘er away dirty.”
Simon returns with their breakfast. Despite the fact that River cannot place the taste, she eats it quickly. She has an appetite, and for some reason this pleases her to no end. She giggles and laughs with Simon and Jayne; their camaraderie is catching.
When both she and Simon have finished breakfast, she gathers up the dishes and puts them in the sink. There is a clink and River is surprised when it doesn’t wake her from this ethereal place. She waves goodbye to Jayne and he winks at her. A glow blossoms within her.
Simon walks a few paces ahead of her until he reaches the Infirmary. When he turns around, he raises his eyebrows as though surprised she’s there. “River, what are you doing?”
“Waiting for my meds,” says River. “Hurry up.”
“Meds?” Simon makes a face before saying, “I could give you some vitamins, I guess.”
“Simon, don’t be ridiculous,” says River. “Get the needle out.”
She climbs onto the exam table and sits with her legs before her, dangling over the side of the bed. Simon turns away from her and grabs a clean cloth from nearby. He begins cleaning the counter in long, wide swipes, covering every inch of the area.
River waits. She feels this is the right thing to do, that she needs to be treated.
She wonders what she needs to be treated for.
Shrugging, River hops down from the exam table and almost runs into Simon, as he is much closer to her than he was a moment ago. His lips on her forehead are warm, but it is his hand on her abdomen that makes her stomach turn.
“Sorry,” says River. Her palms sweat and she doesn’t know if she’s saying it because she bumped into him or to help him save face. She looks up at him.
Simon’s eyes are empty. “I know, mei mei. I know.”
“I’m going then,” someone says, and when River turns around, she sees herself still seated on the exam table. When she rotates to face Simon again, she finds herself back on the exam table. She hops off before the world has a chance to shift again.
“Bye,” says River, but her words ricochet back and forth against the walls, until they’re lost in the passage. She doesn’t look behind her to see if Simon is watching as she goes.
When River enters the cockpit, Wash is sitting in the pilot’s seat, his dinosaurs keeping him company on the console. His shirt is colorful and she’s reminded of clowns on Earth That Was. She smiles.
“Hello, young lass,” he says. “I was wondering what happened to you.”
“Sorry.” River bows to show him her respect. “I overslept.”
“Alas, happens to the best of us.” Wash nods towards the seat next to him. “Have a seat.”
The chair conforms to the shape of her body, welcoming her presence. She sits forward on it and presses her feet to the floor. The most surprising moment comes now, when she realizes she is wearing shoes. As with the weapon in her hand, she doesn’t remember being a part of her day, didn’t even know she possessed them. Did she borrow them from Zoë? Inara? River tries to imagine where the shoes came from. Was she sleeping in them?
Wash reaches out in front of her and adjusts the steering wheel. He smells like apples and exhaust, and she can see grease on his fingers. He doesn’t mess with Serenity as much as Kaylee does, but he gets his hands dirty often enough. Glancing down, she sees that he is wearing shoes. She wiggles her toes, expecting to find that she has imagined the footwear. She hasn’t.
“First,” says Wash, “you put your hands on the steering wheel.”
River puts on hand on each side of the wheel. She knows Serenity will speak to her; Serenity has always spoken to her. She wonders sometimes if it speaks to Mal, too, or Kaylee. Kaylee more than Mal, maybe, because Kaylee knows what Serenity likes and doesn’t like, how to encourage her when she’s given her all. No, River thinks, Serenity doesn’t speak to them, but probably wants to.
Holding herself very still, River waits for Serenity’s words to tickle her ears. It usually doesn’t take much. Serenity’s stream of consciousness is ceaseless; the difficulty comes in weeding them out from the other words. Today, however, there are no other words.
When Serenity does not whisper to her, she looks at Wash. “Am I doing this right?”
“Yep.” Wash faces forward, his hands loose on his steering wheel. He relaxes back into his seat, his feet light on the floor, as if he is testing the waters with a toe or two. “I like to think it takes a master to do it with exceptional style, but you’re doing all right for an amateur.”
She smiles at him. “Xiè xiè.”
There is a pounding at the back of her head, a thumping that seems to intensify the longer she waits for Serenity. In an attempt to relax, she sits back in her seat and takes a deep breath.
“What in the gorram name of hell did you do that for,” Jayne says, and River has to blink to remember that she is the cockpit with Wash, only she’s not, she’s back in the Dining Area and Jayne is striding towards her. He’s looking at her abdomen, at the place where Simon touched her earlier, or where she imagined he touched her. She’s not sure which.
Once again she is aware of the weight in her hand, the knife, but now she notices it’s bloody. She opens her mouth to ask whose blood it is, but a voice distant from her own says, “Matched set now.”
She hears herself cackle, feels her jaws open to allow the wicked sound to escape, but she’s not aware of sending her body the instructions to make these movements.
The floor is cold underneath her and now she can hear Serenity, its algorithms racing through her at a blinding pace. She reaches out to catch them, but they shoot through her fingers. Staring up at the ceiling, she realizes Jayne is holding her. She looks at him, the Big Bad Wolf, but his grin is gone. He looks hard and tough and angry. If he senses she’s studying him, he doesn’t let on.
From somewhere nearby she hears Wash say, “If you catch on any more quickly, you’ll be piloting Serenity in my place.”
She sees herself sitting there, tiny compared to the enormous entity that is Serenity, clutching the steering wheel. When her lips form words, she is back in her body and chair. “That’s impossible. There’s no better pilot in the ‘verse than you.”
“Someone say somethin’ about a better pilot than Wash?” Mal enters the Cockpit behind them, and they turn to face him. “Ain’t nobody better’n our man Wash.”
Mal looks wrong, too, in a way that is too right. His face is less haggard; his eyes have a shine to them that was missing before. It is as though someone has taken a string from the top of his head and pulled it up, both correcting his posture and giving him an air of pride that was lost somewhere along the way.
He looks good. Wrong, but good. River smiles at him. “That’s what I told him. Serenity wouldn’t let anyone else fly her.”
“Damn straight.” Mal slaps Wash’s chair. “Little sister speaks the truth.”
“Please, please,” says Wash, waving their words away. He cocks his head to one side and puts a hand under his chin. “Let’s talk more about me.”
“Let’s,” says someone, and the voice comes from everywhere.
The cockpit is empty save River. She looks up. “Serenity?”
A familiar laugh bounces from floor to ceiling and back again. “No, no, nothing quite so anthropomorphic as that.”
River frowns for the first time that day. She peers underneath the console and over it. “Where are you?”
The world blurs and sharpens before her, shapes morphing from one to another. The room has a soft scent of something flowery; the color red is ubiquitous. A woman River recognizes sits on the bed before her, brushing long dark hair.
“Inara?” says River.
Inara turns to face her. “No, just an imitation, I’m afraid.”
The bed seems predatory, but River is afraid of things changing again and so takes a step towards it. “What have you come for?”
“You.” Inara puts down her brush. “Think of me as… A spiritual guide, if you will.”
“Are you a spirit?”
“No, more a figment, really. You brought me here.”
“Me?” River’s eyebrows knot and she sits down. “I brought you?”
“Well, it really should have been Shepherd Book, but…”
River shivers. “Hair.”
Nodding, Inara says, “Exactly. So I’m here instead. I’m assuming a resemble a kind of mother figure for you, but that’s neither here nor there.”
“You’re here because time isn’t flowing the right way.”
Inara purses her shiny red lips. “It’s more than that. It’s…” She sighs and picks the brush back up. Her motions are so fluid that they seem ghostly, but this image is too eerie for River to process. She imagines instead that Inara is a fairy, and the too-fast motions are a part of her otherworldly aura.
Opening a drawer, she drops the brush in. “Think of it this way. When you were a child, you loved to play games, yes? This is a game, too, but you’re the only one playing.”
The banging in River’s head begins again with an intensity that makes her see stars. When her field of vision normalizes, she sees Inara sitting next to her on the bed.
“River,” says Inara. “River, stay with me here. None of this is real; you are causing it.”
“So?” River looks away from her, fighting the pain in her head and the new pain emerging from her insides. “So what if I’m the cause? All the people I’ve seen today are happy.”
Inara reaches up and touches River’s chin. Her fingers seem chilly where they should be warm. “You’re a brilliant woman, River, but you can’t stop the passage of time. While you spin your own story, the galaxy keeps moving.”
Lowering her voice, Inara says, “You’re hurting yourself, and you’re worrying everyone around you. In reality, no one on the ship is happy.”
“But,” says River, “they are happy here.” She gestures around her. “Jayne treats me like a person; Wash wants me to learn to be a pilot. Mal is whole again, and Simon…”
She looks away from Inara. “Simon isn’t afraid of me in this place.”
“River,” says Inara. “You know this isn’t right. If you were convinced that this world is the one you belong to, truly, I wouldn’t be here. You called me here.”
“Won’t,” says River, but she can feel her phrases begin to unravel. “Can’t make me.”
“River.” Inara brushes a tear from River’s cheek. “River, hush.”
“Shan’t.” River reaches out for words that make sense, phrases that sound whole. “Wouldn’t, couldn’t, won’t. Oughtn’t.”
The room begins to shake and swim in front of her, but River refuses to let it go. “Mine. You don’t get them all.”
“River,” says Inara, but her face is losing its color. She melts into the empty background.
River turns around, trying to catch a glimpse of the imitation of Inara and the world she was so comfortable. “Whore. Traitor.”
She imagines she hears Inara’s voice, but it is too quiet to make out. “Bitch,” she screams, and everything comes into focus. “No.”
Kaylee stands before her, eyes and mouth wide. She is lost, River thinks. In my world, she would have been a princess. In my world, we would all have lived happily ever after, kings and queens and ravens and hollyhocks.
River watches as Kaylee’s lip trembles and her body shakes. Shame overtakes River’s body, and she hurries to get away from Kaylee, to keep Kaylee from the harm she spreads like poison ivy.
“Sorry, so sorry,” says River.
In my world, there are fairy tales and daisy chains and pretty girls all in a row. In my world, no one is lost in the darkness.
River feels the tears only when they are falling down her cheeks. Kaylee has them, too. Matched set.
All the gold in the world can’t bring it back, River thinks, and she says, “Go away.”
When River is alone again, she rocks back and forth, hugging her knees, wishing for uninterrupted sleep into which she can escape. It’s all she has left.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-22 01:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-02 12:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-22 03:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-02 12:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-22 11:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-02 12:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-24 07:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-02 12:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-24 10:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-02 12:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-24 10:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-02 12:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-27 04:47 pm (UTC)And she dreams people whole, she wants everyone healed, not just her.
- hg
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-02 12:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-29 05:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-02 12:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-29 05:59 pm (UTC)Thank you for remixing me!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-02 01:00 am (UTC)Originally, the guide was YoSaffBridge, but after watching "Trash" again, I realized she wasn't going to do what needed to be done. She was too angry, and River wasn't near comfortable enough around her to put her in that position. Inara was the next best thing, and once I had her in there, it all seemed to flow.
So in short, I really enjoyed remixing your piece, as well as reading your other fics. ^^ Thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-01 12:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-02 01:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-06 10:05 pm (UTC)"I’m assuming a resemble a kind of mother figure for you, but that’s neither here nor there." - ?
Woa, intense. Very disorienting. And good. :)
Regarding the ending which you mentioned being difficult, I think from "Kaylee stands before her" to "'Sorry, so sorry," says River." there could be a bit more of a clear transition into River having woken up. But I think the last four lines bring everything together well.
I read shetiger's fic as well and was surprised at how different it was. I was expecting it to be the same plot line, different execution. I would think yours is more of a branch off of some of her ideas rather than a remix. But hoo, I liked how the second half of hers really shows off Inara's finesse.