Fic: Not Caleb the evil preacher man
Title: Not Caleb The Evil Preacher Man
Author: Wyndewalker
Xover Fandom: Firefly,post-series/pre-movie
Series: none
Challenge: twistedshorts August-Fic-A-Day - Day 6, 2013 Trope Bingo Round 2 - Doppleganger
Authors note: None
Rating: PG-13
Warning: None
Word Count: 2,484 according to Word
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Firefly or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All rights belong to their owners and I merely borrow the characters for your amusement.
Summary: Serenity picks up another stray.
"It was an accident."
Mal looked up startled from the gun he'd been cleaning when River spoke. He was leaning against the wall of the infirmary by the door while the Doc puttered around. Both of them waiting for their newest 'guest' to wake up.
"Mei mei?" Simon asked quietly.
"It was," she said sincerely, looking at her brother before looking back down at the young man on the exam bed. She gently brushed back some of his hair. "The earth quaked, the walls shook, and a knife fell, a special knife, a ceremonial knife. Cut Dawn, made Dawn bleed. Green light spilled out. Created a hole. Tried to swallow her up, but he pushed her away. Took her place. Shouldn't have worked. Needed blood. Her blood, but it was satisfied with him. He fell and he fell and he fell until he crashed. Right in the middle of Them. Confused. All mixed up. Nothing right. Wouldn't answer his questions. He didn't know how to answer Theirs. Two by two. Hands of blue. Took him. Hurt him." She was crying, her voice strained.
Before Simon could do more than take a step towards her, River took a deep shuddering breath and seemed to calm. Mal waved him off, meeting his glare with one of his own. She was making a kind of sense in her eerie way and Mal needed to know everything he could about this stranger.
"They hurt him. Shattered him. Gave voices to those who didn't have them before. The scared little boy hiding from the hun dan. The young man who was born to endure the pain. The Soldier. The Puppy. And Her. Demanded answers that none of them knew. Then They let the Puppy out of her cage." River's grin was feral and bordered on bloodthirsty that made Mal more than a mite uncomfortable. "Didn't know what They were getting into. Thought she was docile. Thought she'd let Them do whatever They wanted to her cub. They were wrong. She and the Soldier fought back. Worked together. Left Their ship in a shambles before escaping in an egg. Thought They'd be able to hunt him, but he knew better. Dug out their beepers himself." Her hand drifted over three fairly new scars Simon had found on the young man.
Mal and Simon exchanged glances and Simon immediately picked up one of his scanners. Nothing had shown up when he did the initial physical but he hadn't been looking then either. A more thorough examination showed that he was clean, making Simon breath a sigh of relief.
"He needs our help. Needs to be put back together. The voices blurred and put back into one instead of five. Doesn't know where he is. Doesn't know when he is. Wants to go home but knows he can't. Won't ever be able to go back unless the Red Willow finds him. Knows this is where he'll be staying." She looked Mal straight in the eye, held his gaze like he couldn't turn away if he wanted too. "Win his loyalty and he'll step into the Black for you."
Suddenly she looked away, starting to hum to herself as she gently pet the young man's arm.
Simon frowned. Two by two. Hands of blue. Somehow that odd little rhyme had something to do with the Academy. "River? Was... Was he at the Academy with you?"
She shook her head. "He landed on a ship. Out of the green. They wanted to know how. But he doesn't know. Never his place. Donut boy. Zeppo. The others never saw him. Not truly. The one who sees. The heart. And now he's lost to them. His life for hers. No choice in his mind." She looked solemnly at Mal. "He done what's right."
Then she was humming again, shutting the world out. After a moment and she didn't say anything more Mal gestured Simon over. Simon watched her carefully for a moment but finally went.
"Did she say what I'm thinking she said?" Mal demanded quietly. "That this guy fell out of nowhere onto an Alliance ship in the middle of the Black and then they tortured him like they done her because he couldn't tell them how he got there?"
Simon's mouth opened and closed for a moment before he finally shrugged. "That does sound like what she was trying to tell us. Something about, I'm assuming, a girl named Dawn bleeding which caused whatever it was that brought him to be into the Academy's hands. It also sounds like he might be suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder, but..." He trailed off frowning.
"What?"
"It's just, if it is MPD it's the oddest case I've ever heard of and, well, MPD isn't contagious."
"Okay, you've lost me here, Doc. This MPD thing is a spreadable sickness?"
"No! No. It's just, my sister is unstable. Crazy," he allowed at Mal's look, "but she has never once shown a second personality. She might not be lucid at times but she has always been River. In the cargo bay that was definitely not River who told us to drug this young man. It sounded like this 'Soldier' aspect she mentioned just now. Which is impossible. A personality cannot move from one person to another."
"I know you don't like thinking on this, Doc, but your sister does seem to know things she shouldn't. Seems to pluck the thoughts right out of a man's head."
"My sister is not a psychic. She's just deeply intui..."
"Intuitive. Yes, so you keep saying. Seems to me you're the one that don't want to see the stars for the Black."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"They hurt your sister, no doubt of that. Done things ain't no one got the right to do. You're determined to help, which is a noble thing, but you want to put her back to the way she was, to the little sister you used to know. Way I see it that ain't never gonna happen. It was three, four years before you were able to get her out of there? Children do grow up, become young adults. Ain't no stopping that. Seems they twisted her growing, tried to shape it in a manner that'd be most useful to them. Now what you've got to do is help her learn to cope with what they done, maybe even help her to learn how to make it useful, turn it against them. Can't do that though if you're still trying to turn her back into your fourteen year old sister."
"Wisdom comes in many forms and faces. Hiding in front of you. But will you see it?"
They both looked to River but she was still petting the young man.
"She's right," Mal nodded. "Creepifying, but right."
Simon frowned. "I'll think about what you've said but I still don't believe she's psychic."
"That's a truth you'll have to come to on your own. Way I see it though, to get back to what we were talking about, is this soldier, Sheppard I believe he called himself, was the calmest one in that boy's head, was the only one we'd listen to. So while your sister was trying to calm down the puppy he took her over. Not something that I find to be a pleasant thought, but near as I can tell not something that's likely to happen on a regular occurrence either."
"Alright. Going with the theory that my sister is somehow psychic, that *might* possibly explain the seeming personality transference. It still doesn't explain the 'puppy' aspect though. I have never heard of someone suffering from MPD having an animal aspect. A somewhat feral aspect perhaps, usually quite angry and violent, but from the way he moved, they way he acted, he was some kind of canine. That's just not possible."
"Violent? You didn't think to go mentioning this sooner? Shouldn't we have him restrained?"
"Please don't."
They both turned, startled by the quiet masculine voice. River was smiling at the apparently awake young man who'd raised one hand to his head as if in pain.
Simon was immediately in doctor mode, crossing over to them so he could exam the young man know that he was awake.
"Ack! Light bad," the young man complained when Simon shined a pencil light in his eye to check the responsiveness of his pupil.
"Any dizziness? Any pain?" Simon asked.
"Uh, more nausea than dizziness, and no, not really in pain."
"Well, now that we've got that out of the way, mind telling me just what you're doing on my boat?" Mal asked coming up to the foot of the exam bed, wearing his best Captainy glare.
He had a brief moment to see the young man's eye widen in absolute terror before a bare foot lashed out catching him in the chest. As he staggered back the young man rolled off the bed grabbing Simon and River as he went. He pushed them into the farthest corner of the room then planted himself between them and Mal. A scalpel that he'd snatched from the counter his only weapon.
Mal had his gun drawn before he'd finished staggering. "What in the gorram hell..."
"You took one eye, Caleb, I'm not letting you take another. And you'll have to kill me first before I let you hurt anyone else."
"I'm thinkin' that can be arranged," Mal snapped, then frowned. "Caleb? Who the hell is Caleb?"
"We know this man, Captain?" Zoe asked as she came up next to him in the infirmary doorway, her shotgun at the ready.
"No. Not that I can recall. I didn't take your eye, boy."
"Thumb in the eye. Made it go squish. Made him scream. Had to cleanse the world of the dirty girls. Six feet under now. Worms in the brain. Wiggle and squiggle and ate him all up. All gone now," River said happily, wrapping her arms around the young man's waist from behind, hugging him close.
"River," Simon hissed trying to pull her away from the madman.
"Okay. Did that make sense to anyone?"
"Actually it sorta made sense to me," the young man answered, still standing warily between Mal and Zoe and Simon and River.
"Now ain't that creepifyin'. Want to tell us what she meant?"
"What it boils down to is you're not Caleb. Though I have to admit I was starting to come to that conclusion myself."
"Ain't that shiny. You believe her but not me."
"Would you believe the man holding a gun on you who happens to be a dead ringer for the man who gouged out your eye with his bare thumb when he says he's not the guy who did it?"
"We're gouging out eyes now?" Jayne asked coming up behind Zoe. "No one told me we were gouging out eyes now. I don't hold with gouging out people's eyes. Gonna kill 'em do it quick. None a this torture go se."
"Ain't no one gouging out anyone's eyes, dong ma?" Mal growled rolling his eyes at Jayne's show of 'morals.' "Now, you got a point there. Reckon I wouldn't believe a man who looked like the fella what done me wrong, but I ain't him."
"Nope, not Caleb." The young man agreed.
"Glad you agree. Though I am a mite curious as to why you suddenly agree I'm not this Caleb hun dan."
"Well, for starters, I'm not dead. Caleb would've killed me by now if he was holding a gun on me. Second, well, you're holding a gun. Caleb preferred knives if he was going to use a weapon, otherwise he really preferred to use his bare hands when killing. Third, there's a woman standing next to you with a weapon and her hand brushed against you when she came in. Caleb hated women. Wanted to cleanse the world of them, which when you think about it is really kind of dumb 'cause you'd just be wiping out the entire human race eventually. Plus the touching thing, which tells me she's corporeal so she can't be the First."
"The First what?"
"The First Evil," the young man said diffidently.
"The First Evil, well, that explains everythin' now don't it," Mal snarked. "Seein' as how we both agree that I'm not the one that hurt ya how about you stop holdin' my people hostage."
"I'm not holding them hostage," he replied.
"Yes you are."
"No I'm not."
"Yes you are."
"No I'm not."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Y..."
"Sir," Zoe snapped.
"Fine. You're not holding them hostage. Then what are you doing?"
"Protecting them."
"From what?" Mal snapped, getting seriously aggravated.
"Uh, you? 'Cause I thought you were Caleb the evil preacher man." The young man said sheepishly.
"I seem to recall us agreein' that I am not this Caleb? Wait, he was preacher?"
"We did," he agreed. "And, yep, an evil preacher."
"Do I look like a gorram preacher to you?"
"Nope. Hence the not being Caleb the evil preacher man."
Before Mal could make another comment Simon interrupted, "If I might suggest, we all agree that Mr. Sheppard reacted on a case of mistaken identity and has no intention of harming anyone. Perhaps if everyone put their weapons down at the same time we can discuss this in a civilized manner?"
"Right, Mr. Sheppard puts down his weapon and I... I'll put mine away, dong ma?" Mal said pointing his gun towards the ceiling though not holstering it.
"Er, one, what's don ma? And, two, who's Mr. Sheppard? Is that the guy behind me?"
Mal blinked. "Dong ma means understand and you're Sheppard."
"No, I'm not."
"Yes, you are."
"No, I'm not."
"Yes. You are."
"Look, Mr. Not Caleb the evil preacher man, but I think I would know if I was somebody and I know I'm not this Sheppard person."
Mal started to retort but Zoe's sharp, "Sir," brought him up short. Gritting his teeth, he said, "If you're name isn't John Sheppard then what is it?"
"Xander Harris. John Sheppard?" Xander questioned, finally putting the scalpel aside. "You talked to Soldier Guy? Huh. I didn't think he was still around. Weird. So who are you and where am I anyway? Last thing I remember is dropping into what looked like some kind of lab with doctor type people and creepy guys in suits."
"Mal Reynolds, Captain of Serenity. Best ship in the 'verse. This here is Zoe Washburne, my second in command. And that's Jayne."
"Ship? Like on the ocean ship?" Xander asked.
Jayne snorted. "Naw. Like in space ship."
"We're in space?" Xander squeaked.
"Yep."
"Right," Xander muttered just before he passed out. Everyone looked at each other while River giggled into her hand.
"At least we didn't have to sedate him this time," Mal muttered earning a long suffering sigh from Zoe. "What? We didn't."
The End