firefly_fanfic | Fic: By Virtue Fall (R) Simon/River (Reply)

Title: By Virtue Fall
Author: smurf
Summary: Simon only meant good with his actions.
Rating: R
Characters: Simon, River, others
Pairing: Simon/River
Warning: Character Death, Incest, Dark
Spoilers/Timeline: Set after BDM
Disclaimer: They're not mine, I just test drive.
Author's Notes: For the Shakespearean quote fic challenge, using the quote "Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall," from Measure For Measure.
Words: 2,900

The captain of all people. Kaylee wanted me to help in the engine room, and yet I couldn't pull my eyes from the galley. There a bowl and fruit between them, knives in hand to cut it, and in front of a pot of chocolate -- was that truly chocolate? -- sat the captain and River.

"Hey, Simon," Mal called, passing a sliver of chocolate covered apple to River.

My sister looked up with a gleaming smile, chocolate on her lips. "Reaping the spoils." She watched a drop of chocolate drip to the table and splatter before eating the apple slice.

I wasn't welcome, something in their manner spoke of it, though I was careful to not show I knew. "Can I talk to you for a moment, Captain," I asked before I'd realized.

"Sure." He rose with a smile to River, a last look over his shoulder at her as he joined me in the narrow corridor.

And I wanted to talk to him about what? I tried not to fumble or stutter in my panic. But, River's laughter, at what we rarely know anyway, pulled both our attentions back to her.

"She's young enough to be your daughter," I said, no reason why the words had spilled out.

"I know." Mal looked me over, eyes just barely downcast like they do when we're standing close.

"Just--"

"Well aware. Thanks for further informing me, Doc." There was a bristly tone in his voice, and I almost felt a little glee in it. "Wanted something?"

"Yeah." I nodded my head, trying to think of something to mention. "Kaylee said she needed another box of utility boltings... added to the shopping list."

Mal nodded and pinched his lips into his captainy face. "Thanks. I'll do that." I almost gave a sigh in relief at saving myself from myself. With that said, Mal turned back to River, the smile he returned to her less glowing.

#

"Did gorram good, girl."

Maybe it was my imagination but it almost looked like Jayne leered down at my mei mei. She beamed up at him before gliding past me into the lounge.

"Doc." Jayne nodded to me and followed after River. And were his eyes locked on her ass, of all things?

"Have to know how to play them," River said, standing on tip toe to tap my nose when I caught back up to her.

Play who and about what?

"Jayne showed me all the ropes." River twirled before Jayne's leer. Did she know to not encourage the man?

"Show you the ropes?" I finally managed.

River nodded. "All about the money. But you have to be delicate, ask right and polite. String them along, get just a little better price."

"Damned genius at it." Jayne plopped down in a chair. "Got a better price from Badger than even Mal woulda."

I frowned over at River, still twirling. "What isn't she a genius at?" Jayne paused in thought, that big knife of his balanced to clean his nails or some such.

River stopped, arms out and suddenly picture still. Then she smiled at us both. "I should go tell the captain." She scattered away, up the stairs. Poking her head back she added, "I'm good at greed."

Jayne gave one of his interested grunts at River's departing, and I didn't really have to imagine what he was thinking.

"If you touch her, Jayne--"

"If I want?" he asked, tugged from his thoughts.

"If you touch her," I continued slowly to gather his full attention, "just remember how much your health can hang on my actions, dong ma?"

He sat and blinked, like the last was taking some time to filter into his brain. With pinched lips of disgust, he snorted. "I get ya, Doc." Then thundered away in the opposite direction.

#

"It's not just about the actions." Even with sweat soaked skin and deep breaths Zoe's voice held its usual calm.

Leaning over the railing, I watched mesmerized as she and River sparred below in the cargo bay, arms and hands and feet striking. I'm not sure combat has ever looked so lovely.

"Motions are all blurred, tumbled, uncontrolled." River whipped around her hair with her body, sending a round of blows at Zoe.

Zoe staggered back, recollected herself. "Not doing it right then." She shook her head. "Let the motions became routine until all that's left is calm."

River slightly cocked her head, paused only a second in thought, and Zoe powered in, used her weight and perhaps the calm she spoke of to overtake River and pin her to the floor.

"Find the calm in the motions and you quiet the storm." Zoe smiled down as she lifted River back to her feet. And my mei mei smiled with that light of learning like she would as a child.

"Navigation to check," River said, eyes still lit. "Later?"

"Yes." Zoe pulled her gaze to me as I passed River on the stairs down to the cargo bay.

"Do you think it wise," I asked, "to teach her more about fighting."

Zoe raised an eyebrow, surveyed me.

"It's just," I fumbled on, "couldn't she get hurt, fighting?"

Zoe looked up to watch River's retreating image. "I didn't mean it like that."

I nodded, held my face solid, knew just the comment to make Zoe twist. "But shouldn't we be protecting her, instead of putting her in danger? She's worth too much to risk losing her."

With the last, Zoe's face almost turned into a frown. "Suppose you're right, Doc." She strode out of the cargo bay, and I knew I wouldn't have to worry about her teaching River again.

#

The others sat laughing, sharing in the common room. I lingered on the stairs, braced myself to be 'part of the family' when I heard soft voices, Inara and River, there on the steps below.

"Don't really fit," River said, "not really."

"It's not true." Inara's voice was calm and reasoned, practiced.

River shook her head. "Not the same. Always different."

Inara sighed. "In some ways yes, but they really don't care."

"I think sometimes," River said, turning to Inara and leaning in close, voice soft, "they just don't know, just don't understand, all the darkness and power and control that needs to be beneath it all."

I remained above, silent, but cocked my head, wondering at my sister's meaning. Inara seemed to do the same.

"Perhaps," Inara finally said. "Makes you realize how them letting you in may not be enough, some days."

River nodded. "Makes you wish you could drift down there, suddenly fit like one of Kaylee's engine parts, complete and tight and needed."

I stirred then, completed walking down, pausing at their step to look down at them both. Inara gave her measured smile. River just stared up, like maybe I was the solution to all in the 'verse, or just the biggest piece of its troubles. Something about the way River sat shoulder to shoulder with Inara, close and comfortable, unsettled me.

"Shouldn't you be down with the others, mei mei?"

River looked to them, back to me. I thought perhaps she'd repeat her thoughts about not fitting, and it almost left my lips that she shouldn't have thought she ever would. With no words, River left though, gliding down the last of the steps with almost sorrow.

"You should let her interact with the others more." Inara rose and looked me dead in the eyes, more determination than I'd thought her capable. "It would be good for her."

I shook my head. "What do you mean?"

"I know you want to fix her, Simon, but maybe the job is bigger than just you can handle."

"She's getting better. She's gotten much better." But my mei mei was gone, didn't any of them get that? They had each other as family, I had only River. "You needn't mettle." I said the last polite, but with enough weight Inara got my threat.

#

Girlish giggling from the engine room pulled me from the galley. There in Kaylee's hammock, all snuggled in a mess of arms and legs and laughter, sat the mechanic with my mei mei.

River smiled up at me on entering, and Kaylee covered her mouth, eyes brightly gleaming.

"Should I even ask." I lingered at the door, hand on the cold metal that seemed to slowly ebb into my heart.

"Just funnin' is all," Kaylee managed to say. River glanced at her and gave me an even wider, happier smile. It turned something in my gut, and I dismissed it as simply being upset River got the affection from Kaylee I'd pushed away after Miranda had settled back out.

"Didn't mean no harm in it, Simon." Kaylee frowned, and I wondered what she'd caught in my gaze.

I tried to smile, shook my head. "Didn't think you did," I lied. "Don't you two have work to do though. Captain says we're setting down in an hour." And neither would want to upset the captain, now would they?

River's smile fell, her eyes dark. With a sigh she gracefully unwrapped herself from Kaylee and the hammock, and left with a steady look over her shoulder at me. I turned to follow when Kaylee's words stopped me.

"She ain't just yours you know."

"What?" I cocked my head, made sure my face was a mask.

Less gracefully but with steadier actions, Kaylee crawled out of the hammock. "River. Way you been... near-on smothering her." She strolled before me, more a force than I'd thought. "Like ain't a one of us can go having time with her. Ain't right, Simon."

I shook my head. "That's not what I've been doing at all." The others they want her to be part monster, part the weapon for our safety. Who else was to look after her?

Kaylee just tilted her head up, all softness gone somehow. "It's exact what you've been doing."

"She's just your friend, she's my sister."

"Meaning?" Kaylee's face when all scrunched up, how it got when angered, and I didn't really care.

"She's mine to take care of."

Kaylee blinked. "You telling me to stay away, like you have all the others." I was too angry myself to go denying anything of the sort. "Should be careful what you wish for Simon." She brushed past me. "Got dinner duty tonight, work to be doing and all." Nothing but annoyance was in her voice, and it only fueled my anger as I retreated back down to the infirmary.

#

I awoke with a start, cold of night around me except for a small, warm body pressed to my side. I blinked my eyes until my vision cleared. "River?"

"Always have your River." She lowered her head to my bare chest, hair spilling down it.

I almost smiled. "And you always have me, mei mei."

"Always, always, steady, solid Simon." She sighed and snuggled closer, her hand drifting down my side to rest at my hip.

"Something wrong?" I pulled her errant strands off her face, ran my hand down her back.

She shifted to rest her chin on my chest, look up at me with dark eyes. "My sweet, flawed Simon." Then she leaned forward and brushed her lips against mine.

I pulled back as much as I could with her hovering over me, and cradled her face in my hands. "Mei mei?"

She frowned as she drew near again, this time capturing my mouth in a proper kiss. Her tongue pushed open my lips, dipped inside. Something that had been jiggling around my gut for months finally congealed.

I pushed her away and up, her teeth nipping at my lips in the action. She straddled me, warmth radiating from her thin panties snuggled against my crotch. My body slowly betrayed me by responding.

"Need you to fix me, Simon," River said, breathlessly. "Put all the pieces back together."

"I will, mei mei, I will." I leaned up, cupped her head with me hands and rested my forehead against hers. "But not like this."

She shook her head and pushed me back against the bed. Hands holding down my shoulders, she moved her hips against mine. "All I have left, Simon."

I tried to block it all out, how much she needed, how willingly I responded. Lips and teeth and flesh bare against each other. Her moving above me, me finishing over her, buried deep inside her and screaming with my release.

We lay together in silence after. It was perverse and wrong, and it sickened me more that somehow I thought it felt right. Something had broken though, inside me or her, I didn't know. And as River finally drifted to sleep against me, I'm not sure I cared.

#

"Doc, only you she says she'll talk to." Mal rested a hand on my shoulder. "He's coming in now, darling," the captain called through the cracked open cockpit door. "Means you go to doing it, I don't care, son," Mal said, looking down at me, and I wondered if his care for River ran as deep as mine, "but you bring her out of there." With that he opened the door and pushed me through before I'd even gotten the full assessment of the situation.

Inside, in the darkness of space filtering through the window, River sat at the controls. One slender arm held her legs to her chest, the other held a large gun kissed to her lips.

"Wrong," she whispered to me.

I paused in the darkness, wondering if our actions were the wrongness. Forgive me for letting her, forgive me for repeating things, I said inside my head, actually hoping she'd hear.

"I'm not fixable you know." She turned to me, the gun resting on her knees still tightly held in her grip.

I approached open armed. "That's not true, mei mei." I shook my head. "You are. I'll fix you. What happened... it wasn't you..."

She shook her head and turned away. "It was me. The monster and darkness you can't quell, they couldn't smother even if they were home."

"The captain will make it all better." I walked around so I could look at her face. How Mal would clean up her mess this time, keep the Alliance and local officials from taking her in for murder, well I just had to hope he had a plan, or at least someplace safe to hide.

"By virtue fall," River whispered.

"By what?" I sank to my knees before her, eyes on the gun I couldn't yet wrestle from her hand.

She looked down at me, gave a sad little smile. "My dear Simon." She unwrapped her arm from her knees to cradle my cheek. It took me a moment to realize the move had made me hold my breath, ache to be closer to her, belittle myself for the thought.

"You gave up everything for me," she said. "And I become your everything."

"So?" I laid a hand on her bare knee, felt the cold of the steel resting in her hand.

River's smile fell into a frown. "We can't fix each other, can't leave each other. I can't harm you, not you, Simon."

I frowned myself, struggling to gather what her rambling meant.

"It's you, Simon, you're what's flawed, wrong."

I fell back on my haunches, blinking at River's solid face. "I'm...?" I shook my head, my hands cold on the grating beneath. "River?"

"You've destroyed me." River suddenly sounded more sure than I'd ever heard her, even during Miranda. "You'll destroy the others, too."

I just shook my head. Didn't she know how much she meant to me, how much I loved her, had given up for her, would do for her? I couldn't hurt her, I simply couldn't.

"I can't allow that," she whispered. Then she lowered the gun on me.

"River?" I raised my hands. My heart raced, but I couldn't back away.

"Don't worry." She smiled, eerie in the low light. "I can't leave you, Simon. I'll follow right after. Bullet in the brainpan. Squish." She gave a high pitched laugh.

"River." My voice sounded pleading, cracked to my ears. "Forgive me for my wrongs. I can make them right. I can make it up to you," I said in a rush of words. "Don't you understand how much I love you?"

She nodded. "I am your everything. And you meant only right and good by me." There was such a sadness to her that I almost rushed forward to wipe away the tears that fell down her cheeks.

"But we were cut from a bad cloth," she continued, "and the 'verse will be better without."

River cocked the gun, held steady in her hand. "Shhh," she whispered as if trying to give me back the calm I'd failed to provide her.

I closed my eyes, and was surprised at how calm I was. Like always, River spoke correctly, I didn't have the words or thoughts, but I knew deep down in my bones how wrong I had become, how melded to the evil inside I was.

Tears flowed from my eyes, and I could hear River's sniffles in the distance. "Please, River, follow me."

The gun rang out, and I felt myself hammered backwards.

"Can't not, Simon."
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