FIC: Farewells

[srichard.livejournal.com]

TITLE: Farewells (Fourth in the Riverrun Series)
RATING: PG
PAIRING: River/Mal
SUMMARY: There's no place for civilians in a war.
NOTES: Serenity spoilers.



River sat on the catwalk above the cargo bay, just watching the door. It was closed now; they still hadn't broken atmo. River, however, continued to stare at the door as though her brother had already walked out of it, as he would in a few hours.

"Early morning on Ezra," came a voice from above her. "Gonna be a nice cool breeze floatin' through those doors soon." Mal moved down the steps and sat down beside her. "How you handlin' this, little one?"

River shrugged. "Do you know why I like you?"

"Cause of my manly good looks and trenchant humor?"

She rolled her eyes. "You don't ask stupid questions when I'm crazy. Simon does. Do I know who he is, is he talking to Miranda...stupid." She kicked her legs. "Simon doesn't understand any part of me, even though he knows more about my brain now than anyone outside the Alliance." She continued staring pensively at the door. "And now he's going away, and he's not going to ask stupid questions anymore, and I'm scared."

Mal looked just a bit confused. "Not sure I follow—"

"They make me remember who I am. When I'm thinking that Simon's being stupid, I'm being me. And there's no one else who does that for me." River's voice was becoming more and more fragile.

Mal thought about that for a time. "This was your decision, River. A good one, I believe."

"I know," she said impatiently. "But I keep thinking...what if I got off with them? What if that door opened and I stepped out into the early morning air and was gone from here, gone from sponge baths and septic tanks and living on the edge of nothing? What if it was over?"

"Well, River, if you did that, I reckon the Alliance would hunt you down and kill you, and Simon and Kaylee's corpses would be found right next to yours. You plannin' on puttin' that little fantasy to the test?" Mal's face was hard.

She gave him a look. "Don't be stupid."

He grinned and stood up. "See, little one? Simon ain't the only one can say stupid things." He gave her a companionable nudge with the toe of his boot. "Come have breakfast with the rest."

She followed him up to the bridge in more or less amicable silence and sat down at the table next to Simon, smiling. She squeezed his arm and began spooning up some of the protein gruel with traces of dried blueberry here and there.

It was a quiet breakfast as no one knew precisely what to say. What could be said, after all, to the fact that once Simon and Kaylee left the ship, there would be no one left who hadn't nearly bathed in human blood? That it would be a ship full of killers on the way to do some serious damage, to round up other killers... It was a shame, Mal thought, that this wasn't a real army yet. In a real army, there was room for diversification. Room for doctors and mechanics and cooks and folks who didn't kill, just helped those who did stay sane. Room for chaplains and camp followers, so that every man seeking salvation could find it where he liked it best.

"Zoe, you wave the sheriff in Paradiso?"

"Yes, sir. Bourne's his name. He said he'd be interested in speaking with you again." Zoe spoke with quiet competence.

"Is this the sheriff who arrested you?" Simon said incredulously.

"Did his job," Mal said shortly. "And I'd appreciate you mindin' your own business, Doc. This is no concern of yours now."

Simon was about to snap back at him, but River laid a hand on his head. "Blessed are the ignorant. They cannot be tortured for information."

There was a pause, and then Zoe and Jayne burst into laughter. "Girl's got a way of puttin' things," Jayne said through his laughter.

Kaylee looked unhappy. "River, you need me to leave any more dresses for you?"

River shook her head. "Look wrong no matter what I wear. Doesn't really matter."

Mal thought about that for a moment and came to the conclusion that she wasn't wholly incorrect. Some things looked less wrong—that pink dress she had, the one that actually fit her and didn't look like it had been hung out on the line for five years—but fundamentally, she'd not looked comfortable in anything except her own skin. And maybe the space suit, but she couldn't exactly wear that all the time.

The rest of breakfast passed without much trouble, and then River went up to bring them down onto the planet. After a perfect landing, she moved down the stairs to the cargo bay slowly, feeling the cool breeze on her face. She gave Simon a radiant smile and wrapped her arms around him.

Mal was handing Kaylee a bag of coin. "Don't let him spend it all on fancy vests, now."

Kaylee hugged Mal and kissed his cheek. "You all take care of each other, okay?"

Mal glanced around at Jayne and Zoe, who were standing around looking rather nonplussed. "Yeah." He nodded. "We'll do that."

"Don't forget to have the captain run the checks," Simon was saying soberly to River. "Just like I wrote down in the book..."

"I know. Promise," River said. "We'll send messages when we can."

Simon nodded glumly. He'd already been informed about the slim likelihood of him hearing anything about what they were doing outside of a Cortex broadwave. Finally, he just wrapped his arms around River. "If you get in trouble, I'm coming for you."

River gave a dreamy smile for just a moment, then checked herself, though he couldn't see her face. "I know," she whispered, but it sounded more like renunciation than acceptance.

And then, all in what seemed a rush, Simon and Kaylee were off the ship, and stood waving while the door was closed...

River turned as soon as Simon couldn't see her anymore and fled to her bunk. Mal, after a moment's hesitation, followed. He didn't bother knocking because he figured she'd be expecting him. "An uglier place without them, ain't it?" He could hear Zoe powering up the engine.

She nodded. "Never thought that would matter."

Mal sat down beside her, and it felt natural, by now, for his arm to slip around her shoulders and her to lean up against him. "You know what we got here, though? We got four people used to livin' in far uglier situations than this. Zoe and me, we been through hell together, and when I first met up with Jayne, he was sharin' a bunk with a man who was an ugly situation all his own self. And I figure there wasn't too much room for pretty where they kept you. But you know what we all have in common?"

"What?" River asked softly.

"We all hated it like hell. Even Jayne. Zoe married a man who was, rest his soul, a cheerful, bright fella. I tried to latch on to a woman who glowed at me... You loved Kaylee and played with Wash's dinosaurs, and Jayne spent more'n a little time just talkin' with the Shepherd, takin' pleasure in the way that man made this place just a little less ugly."

"So we have four people who hate ugly places and are very good at killing stuck with no one but each other in a big, ugly, empty ship." She looked up at him. "Is this the comforting part?"

He thought about that for a moment. "Yeah, there actually ain't any comfort in that. But the point I was getting to was that we're people who look for somethin' better. May have a hell of a time of finding it, and we may not find it for a long time. Times like this, we have to be the pretty for each other. Have to remember that killers ain't all we are. We're still people who love and laugh, and if we ain't doin' those things right now, we're still people who can, dong ma?"

She was quiet for a while. "If we're on this ship long enough for me to find Jayne pretty, will you shoot me?"

"Oh, hell yeah. Not gonna mess around with somethin' like that." He gave her one last squeeze then stood up. "Now come on. We got recruitin' to do, and I need you to fly my ship."

River stood up as well. "Once we're on auto-pilot, will you teach me to play basketball?"

"Little girl, I would be honored." Looking down at her, Mal smiled. When she looked at him like that, he could be content remembering there was at least one pretty thing left on his ship.