BLUE SUN ROOM FAN FICTION - ROMANCE

CLIO

Something To Think On: Chapter 8
Wednesday, July 29, 2009

M/I. Post-BDM. On love and wanting to give.


CATEGORY: FICTION    TIMES READ: 2344    RATING: 10    SERIES: FIREFLY

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Something To Think On
by clio
Chapter Eight

The thing of it was, the boy was right. He was no better than Simon’s schoolyard friends, scared of life and love and hiding himself behind the mysteries of the universe. And maybe he was right about that second thing, too. Maybe he believed she wouldn’t love him back because he didn’t believe in her.

Love him back. When had that happened? When had he started to think love had something to do with it? It wasn’t straight away, that much was certain. At the start, she’d just been something to think on. A pretty something. A mysterious something. A damned frustrating something.

Soon enough, the pretty and the mysterious and the frustrating’d become too much to bear, and she’d become something he wanted, wanted fierce, from a place so deep down inside it near-about rent him whenever he felt it. Wanted her body but more than anything wanted her soul.

But somewhere along the line – couldn’t quite put his finger on the moment – that’d changed. That first wanting, he figured: it had been a wanting to take. Body or soul, didn’t matter. He wanted something that was hers to give, and he wanted it freely given (no wiles or coin in sight). And that was how he knew it’d changed. One day, out of nowhere, he had a notion that what he wanted was to give.

The wanting to take – it was as powerful as he’d ever experienced; felt it in his skin and his gut and his chest. The intensity of it was new, but the fact of it wasn’t much. But the wanting to give – that there was something he’d never experienced. He wanted to give of himself to her. Not just to her, but for her – wanted to tend to her, to reach in and fix whatever that little thing was inside her that’d gone wrong. And for him, too – wanted to tell her things he’d never told a soul, unveil himself before her, lay himself bare.

It was a wanting harder to fight than the first kind, that much was certain – whether because of the newness of it or the strength of it, he wasn’t too sure.

Took him a while to figure out why the wanting changed, but he finally did. And what it was he finally figured was that that – that peculiar brand of wanting, the wanting to give – that was love.

***

First thing he did when he left her shuttle was go to the bridge and call everyone to the galley (to tell them about a job, he said). It was like someone’d lit a fire under him where there’d been nothing but smoke before. Simon. Simon had done it. Because it wasn’t just about love that the boy was right. He was right about something else, too: about hope, about trying.

When he got down to the galley, the picture he found nearly put some of that fire out. Zoe, sitting at the table, head in her hands, a look on her face like resignation (a look he hadn’t even seen when Wash’d passed, when she swore to him she’d fly true). Simon and Kaylee on the sofa in the back of the room, Kaylee with her face buried in his neck, him with an arm around her, stroking her hair, whispering something to her to comfort but with a thoughtful look on his face that said he was thinking on something else entirely. And Jayne –

Jayne was standing in front of him, a menacing look on his face. His voice was dead serious. “I got words to say to you, Mal. Reckon we all got words to say to you after that little stunt o’ yours. Woman in there is dyin’. You hear me, fella? Dyin’. If you’re just gonna sit around thinkin’ ‘bout new jobs and generally bein’ a jackass to those near and dear –”

Felt chastised but tried not to let it show much. Rolled his eyes up at the big man. “Nice speech, Jayne. But this job is for her.” The merc relaxed some (took a bit of a step back and leaned against the cooker), but his eyes were narrowed and his arms were crossed across his chest, like to tell him he wasn’t satisfied just yet.

He stood at the head of the table, hands braced against the back of the chair, and looked out over his stragglers. Zoe’d looked up at him, a quizzical look on her face. Kaylee’d tilted her head up from Simon’s shoulder; face was streaked red. Simon looked about the way he had since he came in: not at Mal, not at anything. Eyes fixed to nothing, like he was furiously working through something in his mind. River stood, back straight against the wall opposite him, that endless serene look on her face, like always.

He was quiet for a bit, trying to gather his thoughts. And then he spoke them.

“Been talkin’ to the doctor. Likely he could explain it better to you himself. But what I take from him is this: her dyin’ ain’t needed. At least not right now. There’s medicines in the Core can buy her time –” Quieter: “Buy us time.” A breath, and, “She made a choice in stayin’ here after Miranda. She chose to stay with us.” This part hard to say: “To stay with me – and don’t think I don’t know that.” A beat. “I don’t reckon any of us except her, and maybe Simon over there, knew how big a choice that was. And he’ll have to work through that knowin’ in his own head, as he will. Because in choosin’ to stay with us, she was choosin’ to lose access to the Core. In choosin’ to stay with us, she was choosin’ to die.” A long pause. “But the way I see it, it wasn’t just her choice to make.”

***

When had it happened? It was gradual and sudden at once. He’d first noticed there was room in him for the wanting to give when he’d found himself wed to that minx Saffron. It was a simple thing, really. She’d come to speak to him in her words meant to deceive, and he’d found himself talking about Shadow. On and on, it seemed, until he realized what he was doing.

It took him aback for a second: didn’t know what to do with it. When all was said and done, he’d blamed it on her wiles (easy to blame so much on that particular trade, fair or not).

But when he looked back on it later, it came to his mind that it was more than that. Because when he looked back, he realized he hadn’t so much minded the telling – just wanted to be doing the telling to her. In fact, the telling had started in a different part of Serenity, in her shuttle, when he’d put his mind to children. She’d snapped at him, and he’d felt hurt. But there in the hold, when out of nowhere he’d started in on Shadow and ranching and branding and his momma, he was still talking to her, and imagining she wanted to listen.

It was something he didn’t full understand, this brand of wanting. It was like wanting to melt himself down and pour himself into her; fill all her cracks with bits of himself to make her whole. And him, too: because for a long time, the new kind of wanting filled those weak spots in him, too.

But the when of it? Gradual and sudden at once, true.

The happening of it was gradual. There was less fighting. Managed to joke about her profession (talk of kissing) in a way less caustic than normal. That moment in her shuttle, when he sent her away, and he couldn’t tell her that the reason he couldn’t leave was that if he couldn’t fix Serenity, none of them had any hope. Felt a fondness for her – constant, powerful – that was different to normal, and a shyness about her that wasn’t there before.

But the realizing of it – not of the wanting, but of the love – was sudden. He remembered the very moment when it’d become something he’d known. Her knock on the hatch to his bunk had been soft and he knew, knew, it was her. Bullet he’d taken on account of the catalyzer still had him sore, but he’d stood for her as she climbed down. Was just pulling on a shirt when she tucked her head into the room (was that pink rising to her cheeks?). She made it to the ground and looked around warily; clasped her hands together like being here was a thing made her nervous (though that certainly hadn’t been the case the first time she’d been here, and the second was something he couldn’t fully piece together on account of Saffron and her poisons).

She looked at him with them big eyes, lips just parted but without speaking. He swallowed a lump in his throat. “I do something for you?”

A bit more silence, and then: “Ariel.” Cut her eyes down to the floor. “I need to go to Ariel.”

His hands stilled along the buttons of the shirt. And he nodded once (though she wasn’t looking). “Just tell me when you need to be there.”

Lifted her face to him quick, surprise and gratitude written plain across it. “Thank you.”

She was turning to leave, her hand on the ladder, but he felt like he wanted to stop her. “It really been a year already?”

She turned her head back over her shoulder, and the smile she laid on him was something a bit sad. “Time is a thief.”

He’d held her eyes for a moment seemed to last an age (her eyes wide, unguarded), and then she’d nodded a bit and climbed up and out of his bunk and he’d thought to himself that that was just about the truest truth he’d ever heard in his whole life.

He’d sat down on his bed, shirt still hanging half-open from where he’d forgotten to finish buttoning it, and he’d looked at his hands (hands that’d killed and maimed but had tended, too), and he realized there, in that moment, that he’d do anything for her.

It was maybe on account of this new kind of wanting – love, if that’s what it was – that the next fight they did have stung so bad. She accused him of keeping her away from her job, and maybe it was true. Mocked his work, and maybe it was deserving. “You’re not my lover,” she’d said. But it was what came next hurt the worst: “Neither are you my mother, my House Mistress, or anyone who has the slightest say in how I conduct my affairs.” It was like she’d seen through him, seen the wanting to take and the wanting to give; and in one flat second she denied his claim, right out. He was someone had no say in her life.

But then she’d come to him, once Saffron was aboard. And something in him – his love – let him hear her out. She’d concocted a plan. She’d be his fail-safe. And he didn’t put up an argument because he wanted her to be just that – to be part of his world.

For a time, seemed like she was.

***

He took a deep breath. “I know you all ain’t a part of this. But you know me well enough to know if there’s a chance, I’m gonna reach for it.”

None of them said a thing, though River’s face had taken on a little smile. He looked around the room, at each of them. “Zoe, I don’t want you comin’. We know the Alliance keeps pictures of you on account of your dust devilin’ past. They’re out for you. And if this don’t go down right, well, Serenity’ll need a captain.” Looked to Simon (feeling his jaw tighten). “And you and your sister’ll stay put here, too. We’ve lost a hell of a lot keepin’ you safe. Ain’t about to make them losses for nothin’.” Then, finally, a look at Jayne: “Way I see it is it’s you and me. If you’re game, course.” Took a deep breath. “I can’t lie. There’s no coin in it for you. But if you meant what you said just now, I’m holdin’ some hope you might think on it.”

***

It was Tracey that finally helped him work up some courage. Those things Tracey said, at the end: “Wasn’t no good at life, anyhow. Couldn’t seem to make sense of it, always running scared.” And that soldier’s mantra: “When you can’t run anymore, you crawl. When you can’t do that, you find someone to carry you.” Supposed, in the end, that what that was all about was the wanting to give. What that was all about was love. Maybe the lesson of it all was that running scared stopped when a body found someone he wanted to carry, someone who’d carry him.

He’d stopped by her shuttle sometime after they left Tracey on St. Albans, looking for a spell of awkward conversation, his mind going back to that moment in the galley, him talking about Tracey (didn’t know quite why he’d started talking about the war; reckoned Zoe’s being there made it feel safe), when she’d reached out and touched his arm. Time was a thief, truest of truths, and even a spell of awkward conversation was a moment he couldn’t get back once it was missed.

Knocked, and heard her shuffling inside. Hatch slid back, then, and there she was, standing in flowing silk, hair long around her shoulders. Swallowed once and threw this thumb over his shoulder, gesturing meaninglessly to the space behind him. Shuffled between his feet. “Just stopped by to tell you we’ve landed on Beaumonde. So if you’ve got appointments to keep – now’s the time to keep them.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him, ghost of a smile playing at her lips. “You could have told me that over the comm.”

Nodded, eyebrows raised in some self-deprecating fashion. “Reckon I could’ve. But I was in –” A shrug. “In the vicinity.” Nodded again, then shifted his thumb to point toward the bridge – another meaningless gesture meant to occupy nervous hands. “I’ll just leave you now. To your appointments and whatnot.”

He was turning to leave, when out of nowhere she reached out and grazed his hand, and in a rush: “I don’t have any.”

“Come again?”

“Don’t have any.” A little smile then (the back of her hand over her mouth to block it). “Call it a vacation.” A pause and, rushed: “What about you? Jobs?”

He nodded. Whole conversation, thinking back, felt not unlike their wave, later, her at the Training House, him on Serenity. Same awkwardness, same half-smiles. That time she’d been nervous, genuine: the Operative had come into her home. This time her nerves were less explicable. “Fanty and Mingo. Seeing them tomorrow. About some work.”

She was biting at her lower lip, her hand still up around her chin. “Oh.”

It was another time, like in his bunk, when the conversation could have ended, should have ended, but he couldn’t quite let it. In a rush (like those unnecessary words of hers earlier): “Listen. Um. I know a bar. I mean, it’s where I’ll be seeing the brothers tomorrow, but – if you’d like to get off this boat for a spell, your being on vacation and all, we could –”

“We?” Whatever mumblings came out of his mouth next were surely nonsense, so she kept on. “Will there be pool cues?”

Took him a minute to figure she was joking, and he grinned, full. “None in sight.”

“All right, then.”

And that was that.

***

“You’re not going without me.”

He looked back at the doctor (whose eyes weren’t fixed far away anymore but right on his). Kaylee, face still red, was looking at the boy like he’d grown a third eye. “Simon! You can’t do that; you know you can’t do that. If you get caught –”

Simon looked at Kaylee (holding her hand; or maybe she was holding his) and then back at Mal. “You can’t go without me. You know you can’t. This isn’t like the last time on Ariel. This isn’t just stealing medicine from a hospital. I can’t tell you in advance exactly who you’ll need to talk to or where you’ll need to go. You need me. You know you do.”

Look on Kaylee’s face’d grown something desperate. “Simon....”

The boy looked back at Kaylee; reached a hand up to stroke her hair. “Bǎobèi, you’ll take care of River for me, won’t you? Here on Serenity, with Zoe.”

Felt angry. Didn’t want the doctor to come but knew he was right: he needed him, and letting pride get in his way wasn’t no way to hold on to her. Cursed Simon in his head for being someone he needed.

“There’re things need to be planned, things need to be done over the next few days. For now, I just needed you all to know how I’m lookin’ at things. If there’s any chance I can do something –” Choked over his words. Swallowed, closed his eyes, and then: “I can’t let it pass me by.”

***

He’d told her a whole mess of things that night he probably hadn’t meant to. About how the Alliance’d blown Shadow to bits while he’d been away, because he’d had it in his mind for a spell that he might work his way through school. About how, when they were done, there’d been nothing left of the ranch or the cattle or the hands or his momma. About how it was after that that he’d volunteered for the Independents, where he’d met a career soldier named Zoe Alleyne. About how sometimes he imagined how his momma, wild spirit that she was, must’ve yelled her wrath to the skies as everything was coming down around her, and how that thought at least made him smile.

And he’d been right. It did feel good, this telling, like he’d wanted to tell and sometimes even started to tell times before. She sat beside him and watched him and soaked it all in. And she laughed with his joy and frowned with his pain, and once or twice she touched his hand.

It wasn’t till some time later, after she’d gone (gone, gone), that he realized that while he’d been telling her so much, she hadn’t told him a thing.

Thought over it more than he cared to admit in the time she was away (trying to bring together all the tools he needed to hate her). And the thing he came back to, over and over, the only thing that made a lick of sense to him, was about the wanting, the wanting to give that he felt so powerful. The thing of it was that it was just him. She didn’t feel it. She didn’t love him back. Reckoned she was right not to. He wasn’t a soul much deserved it.

***

end chapter 8

COMMENTS

Saturday, November 28, 2009 8:54 PM

BYTEMITE


Forgot to mention this on the last chapter, but the scared of love business: right on. And the wanting to give and share, well, I think you've heard how much everyone liked that. :) And Jayne standing up to Mal, not confronting and adversarial, but on behalf of the crew!

The explanation of Saffron, and then the wanting to melt down... Ah. Why didn't I reread this sooner? I was busy, but there's too much pretty here for me to have kept away.

The nice little moments you make up in between the series flesh them out so well. So I see a hint of Kaylee jealousy, or if not jealousy, selfishness? probably more concern for simon, but going through this again, it's fun trying to see just what might all be here.

Monday, August 6, 2012 5:39 AM

AMDOBELL


So good to see Mal finally putting together a plan to get the medicine Inara needs not to heal her as such but to hold that long goodbye at bay. So much in this chapter to savour and all of it good! Ali D :~)
"You can't take the sky from me!"


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M/I. Post-BDM. Beginning and ending with a kiss. Nearing the end.

Something To Think On: Chapter 17
M/I. Post-BDM. On coming full circle.

Something To Think On: Chapter 16
M/I. Post-BDM. On lying and learning to let go.

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M/I. Post-BDM. The things we risk and the things we hide.

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M/I. Post-BDM. On Miranda and descending into the dark. Here there be monsters.

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M/I. Post-BDM. On making waves.

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