Fic: No Power in the 'Verse, Part 6/18 (Firefly, River/Mal, PG-13)
Title: No Power in the 'Verse: VI. Siren Song
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~550
Pairing: River/Mal, mentions of Mal/Inara and Kaylee/Simon
Notes: Chapter title and cut text from Liar, Liar by A Fine Frenzy
VI. Siren Song
Combing through hair gone stiff with salt, River sits on the bridge, trying to order a memory scrambled and overfull like an ion cloud.
Mal has gone out on the job, taking Zoë and Jayne with him. River hates to be left behind, feels the strain as she tries to track the three bright spots of family through the docks before letting them slip away. Wrapping herself inside the comforting shell of Serenity, she waits for his voice on the com to rouse her, and she remembers.
Her recent dream brought back many things she'd wanted to block, but as she sat surrounded by the safety of his arms that night in the lounge, she'd seen something new.
In the Maidenhead, in the adrenaline haze, she had meant to shoot him, would have shot him within seconds. But the girl had been screaming inside the weapon, fighting for control of so much as a finger, and thanks to Simon, it had been just enough.
Then Mal had done the inexplicable, picked her up and carried her back to protection, to security. All of this has long been clear, part of the established pattern of her, of them.
Now another thought has sifted free. She's seen him kill before, even friends, without hesitation when threatened. In those seconds as she fought not to shoot him, he had a clear shot, in all logic should have taken it.
But he hadn't.
Things gain a certain clarity in memory after that; she knows all he risked for her, gambling on her shattered self and her worth as a person. Knows as he told her the first rule of flying - talking aloud to please her - that he was speaking not just of Serenity, but of the crew-made-family within her, of River herself.
Somehow they've managed to crawl back from the point of her being a danger, a burden with a gun trained on him. He's helped shine a light on her as she's rewired her mind, his presence calming her, shoring her up against the storms. Together they've rebuilt her position as a useful member of his crew.
Love, trust and purpose. These are what she has craved to make herself a functioning whole once more, and Mal has given her each.
With all that, she thinks, perhaps it would have been more difficult not to fall in love with him.
And the night of her dream has brought one other fact to the surface, one she has turned over and over with wonder - while he may not be able to accept it, there are parts of Mal very well aware of how much she's grown up.
Static on the com draws her back to now, the insistent voice pulling at her.
“River, are you there?”
As she picks up her handset, her blood is chilled, because the voice on the other end is not Mal's, as it always is, as it should be, but Zoë's.
“Yes,” she says, as flatly as she can manage. “What's happened?”
“We're coming in. Get the ship warmed up. And tell Simon to be ready. Captain's down.”
Part 5 - Master Post - Part 7
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~550
Pairing: River/Mal, mentions of Mal/Inara and Kaylee/Simon
Notes: Chapter title and cut text from Liar, Liar by A Fine Frenzy
VI. Siren Song
Combing through hair gone stiff with salt, River sits on the bridge, trying to order a memory scrambled and overfull like an ion cloud.
Mal has gone out on the job, taking Zoë and Jayne with him. River hates to be left behind, feels the strain as she tries to track the three bright spots of family through the docks before letting them slip away. Wrapping herself inside the comforting shell of Serenity, she waits for his voice on the com to rouse her, and she remembers.
Her recent dream brought back many things she'd wanted to block, but as she sat surrounded by the safety of his arms that night in the lounge, she'd seen something new.
In the Maidenhead, in the adrenaline haze, she had meant to shoot him, would have shot him within seconds. But the girl had been screaming inside the weapon, fighting for control of so much as a finger, and thanks to Simon, it had been just enough.
Then Mal had done the inexplicable, picked her up and carried her back to protection, to security. All of this has long been clear, part of the established pattern of her, of them.
Now another thought has sifted free. She's seen him kill before, even friends, without hesitation when threatened. In those seconds as she fought not to shoot him, he had a clear shot, in all logic should have taken it.
But he hadn't.
Things gain a certain clarity in memory after that; she knows all he risked for her, gambling on her shattered self and her worth as a person. Knows as he told her the first rule of flying - talking aloud to please her - that he was speaking not just of Serenity, but of the crew-made-family within her, of River herself.
Somehow they've managed to crawl back from the point of her being a danger, a burden with a gun trained on him. He's helped shine a light on her as she's rewired her mind, his presence calming her, shoring her up against the storms. Together they've rebuilt her position as a useful member of his crew.
Love, trust and purpose. These are what she has craved to make herself a functioning whole once more, and Mal has given her each.
With all that, she thinks, perhaps it would have been more difficult not to fall in love with him.
And the night of her dream has brought one other fact to the surface, one she has turned over and over with wonder - while he may not be able to accept it, there are parts of Mal very well aware of how much she's grown up.
Static on the com draws her back to now, the insistent voice pulling at her.
“River, are you there?”
As she picks up her handset, her blood is chilled, because the voice on the other end is not Mal's, as it always is, as it should be, but Zoë's.
“Yes,” she says, as flatly as she can manage. “What's happened?”
“We're coming in. Get the ship warmed up. And tell Simon to be ready. Captain's down.”
Part 5 - Master Post - Part 7