Chapter 2: Build a Bridge Disclaimer: Repeat after me, kids: I will tithe my earnings to Joss Whedon… Disclaimer 2: This story takes place in some places in flashbacks, but the “present” tense is 6 months post-BDM, and there are SPOILERS for the movie plot. But if you’re reading this, why haven’t you seen the BDM yet? Go watch it! Thanks to the people who were kind enough to R&R, and this is an open call to anybody who might be able to serve as a beta for my work- I would heavily appreciate it! everything in italics constitutes either a personal thought or a flashback, and it’s pretty easy to tell which is which. As always- Keep Flying!

She said “You ain’t ugly, you can kiss me if you like” Go ahead and kiss her, you don’t know what you’re missing You said, “Baby, you’re special, But there’s something not quite right.” She’s a Venus in flares and you wanna split hairs! “I am innocent, you are a rocket. Things were ok till you took out the copper” Leave me alone, and get used to the chains You’re a pain, a pain, a pain, a pain” - Belle and Sebastian, The White Collar Boy

River gazed out the window on the bridge. Out in the black, it was quiet. She turned one of Wash’s dinosaurs over in her hands, looking at the many stars. She could name them if she wanted to. “I think we will thrive here,” she cooed to the dinosaur. Her mind went past the stars. For once it was even her own thoughts that she was lost in. Without the burden of what was hidden on Miranda flitting about in her head she had become more stable. She still spoke in riddles sometimes and felt the emotions and foremost thoughts of everybody she came into the vicinity of. Before she had to carry what she knew all alone, and it was all muddled and buried. Now it was spread out throughout the system, throughout the ‘verse. And she could sleep. And she could grow. She could look at the stars and lose herself. Like she started to a few months ago, on this very bridge. River had been sitting in the chair, for the first time having no thoughts to hear. She held her hands over mouth to keep herself from wailing and waking everyone. Her body shook with sobs that she violently tried to suppress. When River stopped hearing and seeing other people’s problems, she saw her own. She tried desperately not to blame herself for Wash being dead, for Book being dead, for all the hurt that had been caused. Tried to convince herself that in exposing the Alliance, she had done a world of good. But guilt is a sadistic little gorram thing, and River was drowning in it. “Thought you was getting better,” Jayne was in the doorway to the flight deck, being incredibly snarky. “You ain’t gonna go loopy on us ‘gain, are ya? Because if you reckon’ you might-” “I might as well make you rich in the meantime and turn myself in?” River snapped as she looked at him with puffy red eyes. Jayne opened his mouth to argue. “Quit using the money as an excuse.” Jayne opened and closed his mouth a few times. Then, in frustration, he lifted his hands into the air and turned. “Six hundred, four thousand, eight hundred,” River measured off. “Wha?” Jayne snorted as he looked to her. “We both see numbers when we look,” River looked back out the window as tears slid out of her eyes and she gazed at the stars. Jayne shook his head and walked away. Feng le girl don’t realize I was trying to see what was wrong with her. “We need to count on each other,” River whispered softly before a sob caught her.

“Reminiscing, li’l albatross?” Mal called out from the same place that Jayne had stood just three short months ago. She smiled. “Greenleaf?” River perceived, and when Mal nodded and half-shrugged she held the dinosaur level with the controls as she adjusted the flight path. “Two and a half weeks.” “I had this strange hallucination a few moments ago…y’see, I thought I was in charge, and all of a sudden, it turns out I’m not aware of things goin’ on right under my own nose,” Mal sighed. “It turns out, there is somethin’ less right with the ‘verse than you not bein’ all soft in the head. And with the fact that I was inclined to put Jayne through the airlock for wanting you to stay here.” River sniffed and pulled herself out of her reverie completely. She braced herself for what she could only expect Mal Reynolds to say next. “Contrary to what everybody, including your brother the doctor, expects, I will not try and prevent this from happening,” Mal spoke. “Although I’m ‘bout to die from heart attack that it actually did.” “In your physical condition that’s a near impossibility,” River said. “You’d be more likely to spontaneously bleed to death.” “Sure, from a wound sustained while protecting Jayne from Simon,” Mal sputtered incredulously. “And in my condition, believe me anything is possible. What I want to know, li’l witch, is when you knew.” River stood up and walked to the captain. Her dancer’s feet allowed her to float with an undeniable grace to the other side of the room. “Oh, captain,” River leaned into Mal secretively. “My captain.” “Are you going to tell me a story little one? Because I do love a good yarn,” Mal chuckled. “We types with girl names know better than to kiss and tell,” she intimated, making it clear she would not be giving him information, just as Jayne had not. River gave him a kiss on the cheek and pushed him softly out of the entryway, closing the doors with a hissing push of a button. She waved softly, giggling. “Good evening, sir.” Mal turned about and muttered to himself about insubordinate and mutinous behavior. Turning away and stalking down the corridor, still muttering to himself, he passed Simon who was on his way up to the bridge. Mal found that despite wanting to say something, he had to let Simon fight his own battle with River. Perhaps, he thought to himself, she is now becoming the woman she was meant to be before the Alliance stuck their paws in her brain. Or, he countered his own thoughts, perhaps we’ve all been out here in the black too long and I should lock that girl up with her womanly virtue in a convent. Simon glared at River with his arms crossed over his chest. Having reluctantly opened up the door for him, he now stood before her, with a violently angry expression on his face. Apoplectic, some would call it. “I think you’re relapsing!” Simon suddenly shouted. “That’s the only explanation! If…I…ever see him touch you again…you’re better than him, River! And he’s almost twice your age! He’s disgusting, he’s crude, and he has no breeding or sense of how to treat you…have you forgotten what he did to us, to you, on Ariel?” “You can’t explain this away as post traumatic stress disorder, Simon. Your conclusions about the validity of my feelings are wide of the mark, much like your aim with a firearm,” River hotly replied. “You want to believe that I’m simply unable to ever experience things normally. I was sick for so long that you forgot what it was like for me to be well. Now that I’m actually improving, you can’t accept the way I’m doing it. And maybe it’s because you never expected me to get better, but I think it’s because you can’t think of me as anything but your tiny genius baby sister. I can do everything you do, and more, but I can’t fall in love. Because then, just then, I might depend on someone besides you to comfort me.” Simon stood in shock and reached the tips of his fingers to brush against his mouth, stopping the expulsion of what might be vomit. Or perhaps it was just a sob. The bridge was deathly quiet, an uncomfortable silence that came with the shock of such a revelation. Simon suddenly realized his sister had never really spoken this much, not since she became an awkward and self-conscious adolescent. And she had never made such sense, such incredibly painful sense. In a moment, the implications of her improving hit him. She had grown up under such odd circumstances. She hadn’t been a child, an innocent, for a long time. This was just her emotion catching up with her, giving her the maturity and mindset that she needed to finally be independent of him. Still, he thought, if she thinks that Jayne is the one for her to become a woman to… “No, River. I can’t accept this. I can’t accept that you want to be with him,” Simon said firmly. “He doesn’t deserve you, and he knows nothing about how to treat you!” “According to whose standards?” River asked, knowing full well what he would say. “Mine! What should be your standards, too! The way we were raised, the things we were brought to expect out of life. Just because we’re out here in the black, doesn’t mean that we can’t expect people to be worthy of our love! You’re a Core-bred woman, River.” Simon meant it as a way of reminding her of her self-worth. “We don’t belong there anymore, Simon,” River’s voice trembled and she rapidly began to babble. “Nothing is sacred there. Am I supposed to live by the rules of the same people who did this to me? To fall in line with the standards of the society that attacks us when we don’t live up to their expectations? To live like our mother and father, who were so blind to the truth that they didn’t know their own daughter was being held against her will?” “River, Mother and Father had the best of intentions…” Simon held her arms softly and a tear slipped down his cheek. “The road to hell, paved with good intentions,” River summarized. And likely Simon had no better thing to realize than that. She had been through hell; she had survived it. And it had been with the highest of hopes that they had sent her to the Academy. But Serenity, and not Osiris, was their home now. And Jayne…Simon shuddered at the thought but could not help but think of Kaylee, and how earlier she had made a point that River and Jayne had simply met at a bad time. Then Kaylee went into saying that perhaps two people who would normally be so wrong for each other was just the right balance. If Simon were to prevent River from being with Jayne, no matter how much he intended for it to be good, he’d be making her unhappy. Simon sighed and hugged her close, smelling defeat in his breath before he even spoke. “I suppose if he ever gets shot, I can let him bleed a little just to send my message to him,” Simon grudgingly gave in. Tears flowed freely down his face and he smiled despite everything. He kissed her forehead and set his lips in a straight line, then turned and walked away, defeated but not depressed. River smiled and relaxed herself back into her thoughts. As dinner approached, River switched on the autopilot and chased a warm and heady scent to the mess. She rounded a corner and came upon Jayne, standing in front of a large pot on the stove. Settling down in a chair that faced him, she opened her mouth and yawned, a kittenish mewl escaping her throat. Jayne turned and smiled at his small but dangerous lover. He strode over, and latched his mouth over hers before she had a chance to close her mouth from the yawn. He groaned into her throat and pulled her up into his arms, grasping for her very soul. “Don’t know why I didn’t see it three months ago, myself,” Jayne grunted, setting her down in a chair. She looked at him and softly smiled at this man, this man who for all his fighting had finally given in. “I think you did,” she shook her head as he sat down next to her. She wrapped her hands around his and pulled them to her belly and he nodded, understanding. He had just been remembering that night a few months ago when he had come upon her crying. How terribly at a loss he had been about offering her any sort of comfort. How uncomfortable the sight of a teenage girl bawling about God-knows-what in the ‘verse she had been cryin’ for, because he didn’t like the sight of a woman getting all emotional. Since when did anybody expect him to be sympathizing with the girl, anyhow? He didn’t even know why he’d stopped to ask her what was ruttin’ wrong. He’d been in his bunk, sneering at the emotional fortitude of the woman. Jayne paced, rehearsing how he would tell River off. He was also trading insults with curses about why it would be so hard for him to be mean and difficult with the gorram woman-girl. And in the midst of his pacing and muttering, there came a knock on the hatch to his bunk. His ears perked up at the slight sound, and he bit down on his tongue. No one ever came knocking on Jayne Cobb’s hatch, it just didn’t happen. He was soon striding over and unlocking his bunk. The hatch opened and the long, slender left leg of River Tam took a spot on the ladder. It was followed by her right leg, which took its place quite close to River’s left leg. Swinging her left leg about to the other side, her body pivoted to face his. By this time her face was level with his. She looked him straight in the eyes. “I’d like to dance,” River spoke softly. “But someone needs to take the lead.” The sight of a woman’s legs coming down the ladder had shaken Jayne but at this proposition he merely shook his head and looked at her, quite confused. What the hell was she talking about? And at his wrinkled brow she saw his confusion. She motioned toward the bed. Jayne looked over and saw what she was gesturing toward. As he was already confused, it was easy to see that he was misinterpreting what she meant. “Now you just hold it right there, I ain’t gonna be layin’ down with you. True, things are better ‘tween us, but…they ain’t that good ya feng le moon brain!” Jayne hopelessly carried on. River shook her head and leaned into him, forcing him in the direction of the bed. “Wait just a gorram minute…stop…watchya doin’?” Suddenly his legs came in contact with the bed frame and gave out beneath him. River placed one hand behind him and her other hand upon his shoulder, and rested her bare feet against his lower thigh. She leaned in until the crook of her arm obscured her head and her hair fell over her face. After a few moments, she began to shake violently. Jayne didn’t know what to make of this; it certainly wasn’t the way that he usually went about getting trim. Then small choking sounds issued forth from beneath her shuddering shoulders, which turned into sobs again. Then Jayne understood; she’d come to him to cry. Why the hell had she come to him to cry? He didn’t care about her either way. She just happened to be the gorram genius girl who flew the ship and had made sure on several occasions that he was not standing in the path of a bullet. She used to be a pain. He’d even tried to sell her out once. After that, though, he’d figured that something would happen and her brother would eventually drag her away. Yet, despite all that, his hand found its way to cover her hand that was slipping from its place over his shoulder. “It’s too quiet, the stars are all staring at me, not saying a word. I miss the voices,” River sobbed. “You…uh…hearin’ voices ‘gain?” Jayne asked, wary of how she might answer. “I used to hear Wash, and Shepherd, so loud and happy,” she cried as she picked up her head and set her brown eyes staring at him. They were puffy and red and not at all like the scared or dazed and glassy eyes that he had known she had before Miranda. “Oh,” he said simply. He understood. She missed her friends. “Jayne I killed them,” she sobbed out. “They’re dead because I’m not.” “River, you didn’t kill them,” Jayne insisted. “The Alliance did this all.” “She didn’t want to do it,” River sobbed in reference to herself. “She couldn’t protect them all.” Jayne flinched with the realization that River blamed herself for every person that died at the hand of the Alliance while she was out there, on the run. Jayne had never felt regret at killing a man. In fact, quite a few times, he had taken pleasure at it. But he knew at his very core that if River had never been subject to the poking and prodding that the Alliance put her through, she wouldn’t ever have hurt a fly. She was being forced to hurt people at every turn, but it wasn’t her that forced her hand. In fact she would be just as unlikely as Kaylee to fire a gun if she hadn’t been put through what she had. But it was too late to undo the training she had gotten. She would never kill for other people anymore. But she would always be capable of killing. Something in him that started on Ariel began to take shape in his head. How dare those gorram bastards do that to her. Funny, he thought to himself. He had once been one of those types that he now loathed. Strange how the way they had met prevented him from actually getting to know her. Ever since Miranda he had been trying to find the real River. Perhaps he was finally meeting her. Perhaps she could finally meet him, too. “You did good by me, even though you didn’t have to,” Jayne supplied. He pulled her closer than maybe even River herself wanted to come. She sniffed and leaned against him, finally resting her head against his shoulder. River had stopped crying and hiccupped softly, grimacing at the unpleasant tightening in her belly. She nodded and looked Jayne in the eye. She found she couldn’t disagree with him. At the time, at the very least, Jayne was not worth rescuing. She was not necessarily protecting Jayne. She was, however, protecting her idea of home. And Jayne was always a part of that home. Jayne was the one who covered her in a firefight. He was the one whom, above all others, she had chosen to come to tonight. She knew why. She was a weapon, a soldier. And so was he. “Have to make sure our soldiers come home,” she said, turning to the guns on the weapons rack behind her. She reached out to touch the one he called Phoebe. Jayne put his hand in front of hers to block her reach. Shaking his head, he pulled her back against his chest. Then he took down an unloaded gun and handed it to her. It was smaller, and didn’t overpower her body frame. She’d held it before, in the cargo hold. He knew enough about the gun to know that she couldn’t hurt him with it. Not without hitting him with it. And she couldn’t get a good shot at him with his hands all over her like they were. “Shiny,” River exclaimed, attention deviated. Then suddenly she grimaced and turned, gave it back to him, the barrel of the gun facing down. “I…I’d never hurt you again.” “No, I suppose you ain’t crazy after all,” he replied. River rolled her eyes. Jayne took the gun from her and placed it behind himself on the pillow of his bed. Realizing she was still leaning into his chest, his hands crept down to rest around her waist, his thumbs and middle fingers meeting each other as his hands wrapped around her flesh. River felt her pulse and breathing quicken, but then calmed and willed his hands to set out lower. Was it just him that wanted her? Jayne was simple, true. He saw things in very simplistic terms and whatever was the most prominent thought in his mind about a person was, it stuck. River had started out as a Core-bred crazy who was a very high risk to him. As Jayne thought harder (which was very hard for him to do), he realized things between the two of them had probably changed the most. It was, after all, only a gorram baby step that Simon and Kaylee took when they started sexin’ all over the ship. The others had become moodier. But River and him, he thought to himself. Things had changed. She was even, dare he say, important to him. They both stared each other down now and then simultaneously looked down, seeing their hands clasped over River’s toned stomach. River leaned in swiftly before he had a time to react and softly pressed her mouth to his. Jayne was surprised. He didn’t kiss women on the mouth. It wasn’t his style. Then he thought to himself; no, I just don’t kiss them prostitutes on the mouth. River ain’t a whore. River’s tongue darted out and caressed Jayne’s lips, which parted. Their breath mingled, cinnamon and apples.

The next morning, River came up to the bridge and sat down. Mal came along a few moments later and sat down across from her as she pressed buttons and typed in coordinates. “River, what is that?” Mal said, pointing at a stuffed turtle with a poorly re-attached neck that had found its way to her console. It was facing out toward the window, looking out at the black. The turtle had a small plastic toy gun nestled under its front flipper. River peered at it closely. “It seems to be a hard-shelled creature with a weapon,” River surmised. “It wants to be free to swim.” Gorram pilots and their cheeky little toys all over my boat, Mal thought to himself.

That night, when they all sat down to dinner, River sat next to Jayne instead of on the opposite side of Simon from Kaylee. Mal and Inara were sitting across from each other and Zoë at the opposite end. It was very quiet, and the tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. Hell, maybe even a spoon. That was, until something dawned on Malcolm Reynolds. He looked up and pointed suddenly with his finger to Jayne. With his mouth full of protein mash, he managed one simple phrase. “Hard-shelled, my ass!”