One Equal Temper of Heroic Hearts

Disclaimer: Between you, me, and the fence post, the idea of my owning intellectual property rights for anything even remotely Firefly related is somewhere left of ludicrous.

A/N: This is my first go, so be nice, but critical.

I just started some grad work in the UK, and am trying to get used to their quotation system, so an inverted comma denotes speech, two is for speech within a quotation.

River's literary allusions should be pretty obvious, especially to Firefly fans, who, as we all know, are smarter than the average bear. But, for those who are curious, I think I have used J R R Tolkien, J K Rowling, T S Eliot, Shakespeare, and Homer for now. I'm sure there will be more in later chapters, assuming that there are later chapters. The fic and chapter titles are from Tennyson's 'Ulysses'

Chapter One: Made Weak By Time and Fate

***

I should not have lived. Should never have lived.

How? How could I be alive when so many have died? So many have been killed. Murdered.

Survival in the face of such pain, such death. It is absurd, inexcusable, almost obscene.

What right had I to live? Why should my skin still hold my body in, when blood and guts and gore adorn the floor, the last remains of men and women whose skin failed them in the end. Where once their were comrades in arms, now there are only the dismembered arms of comrades, strewn about the deck. Comrades in arms. Babes in arms, more like. And now they are all gone. But I am still here. I should not have lived.

An eyeball stares up at me, accusingly, from the remains of a shattered skull. 'How can you live?' it asks. 'Yes,' I say, 'but how can I die?' I look around at shards of broken glass, jagged ends of metal spikes, the debris of a ship in ruin. A myriad of ways to end my life present themselves to me, eagerly, seductively. They tease me with promises of peace. In an instant, I could take my rightful place among the dead. But I fear that the dead would not accept me. It was a crime to live through such horror; it would be an insult to die now for anything less. Because I survived this, I must survive everything else. Even life.

But I should not have lived. So, I will sit here among the dead, where I belong, and wait for time to do what I cannot. I will wait for death to catch up with me.

***

'Dammit, Mal, they stole that what we rightfully hijacked. It ain't right!' To accentuate his point, Jayne slammed his pint glass on the galley table, spilling half its contents in the process. 'See what they done now? They made me lose my liquor,' Jayne added, licking each finger on his right hand in an attempt to salvage his drink. 'There otta be a law.'

Malcolm Reynolds rolled his eyes, and glared back at the sulking mercenary. 'Well, what is it exactly that you're proposin? That we go to the authorities? And say what? "Excuse me, Mr. Alliance Man, but while we was smuggling some illicit-type material under your noses, some bad guys with big guns came and took it. Could you go an' get em, so that we can finish up our highly illegal deal by sellin' the stuff to a crooked fence? Please." Zoe, maybe you should go tell your husband to get the Alliance on the line. Jayne has a request he'd like to be makin.'

'Yes, sir. I'll go do that now, sir,' Zoe replied, without moving from her position behind the kitchen sink.

Stifled giggles emerged from under the oven, where Kayley lay busily fixing broken things. Jayne shot a dirty look at the mechanic's feet, the only visible part of her petite anatomy. 'Aw, Mal, that ain't what I meant, and you know it. Its just that job was worth a lot. Woulda been a big share for the crew. That's an awful large bit of spendin' money I ain't got. Shit.'

Jayne was about to continue to air his list of grievances when Wash stuck his head in the doorway. 'Did I hear someone in here request an Alliance-type-person? I'm just wondering, because, well, apparently bureaucracy isn't as slow as we thought. There's an alliance ship coming up our way. Should be here in about a half an hour. How's that for service?'

The captain swore in Chinese, and sprang up to follow Wash onto the bridge. He pointed a finger at Jayne, and only half in jest declared, 'somehow, this is your fault. Last thing I need right now is the damn Alliance breathing down my gorram neck, searching my ship and what not. What in the seven hells are they doing out this far in the black, anyway?'

'There are fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world.'

Everyone turned in silence to stare at the disheveled waif, trying to puzzle out her ominous prediction. River looked briefly up from her elaborate finger-paint design, surprised at the sudden attention. 'What?' She demanded to know.

'Gorram creepifying thing to say, that's what,' Jayne muttered, 'I don't even know what it means, and I got goose bumps.'

'Its not as though she does it on purpose,' Simon countered, protectively hovering over his sister.

'Gorram hell she don't.'

'Enough,' Mal interjected. 'We still have that Alliance ship to deal with. Doc, you can insult Jayne later. And Jayne, you know damn well that you can kick the living shit out of the doctor at a later date, Probably will, too. For now, we play nice. Dong ma?'

***

'This ship was meant for battle,' a male voice said. 'Looks like they got more'n they could handle, sir,' a woman replied. 'Gorram Alliance, got what they deserved.' Another male voice, but rougher, deeper. Then the first voice again. 'No one deserves reavers.' The sound of human speech shook me from my reverie, but my body remained lethargic from too many days without movement, so I sat where I was, resigned to wait for them to come to me.

I did not wait for long. A tall man in a long brown coat entered the room. A slight grimace graced my lips as I realized the irony of my fate. I had survived reavers only to be found by a rebel. The browncoat was flanked on either side by a woman, also in a brown coat, and a large man with several guns.

'What the...' The gun-man uttered, the first to catch sight of me, slumped among the shadows at the far end of the room. 'Who the hell is that?'

'The boy who lived.'

All three turned to glare at the pixie-like figure that had just slipped through the doorframe. 'Except not a boy. A girl.'

The browncoat, seemingly unsure of whether to be angry or protective, pulled the girl in to his frame, and asked 'what're you doing in this place, River. Not a sight for pretty eyes like yours.'

'Nonetheless,' the one named River replied, 'a sight they have seen. Besides, its too late to send me back now, captain.'

Sighing in resignation, the captain turned his attention back to me. I still sat, immobile, too weary, in spirit or in body, I know not which, to speak.

'Zoe?' he asked the woman next to him, 'that tattoo look familiar to you?'

'Special forces, sir. Alliance elite.'

'Thought so. Right. Jayne, this calls for caution. She looks too hurt to be a threat, but guns up, on the off chance she ain't.'

'Not a threat,' River announced. 'Chief Joseph. She will fight no more forever. She should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling about the floors of silent seas. She should have died hereafter.' And then to me, apologetically, she explained 'they fear the Greeks.'

'But,' I said, surprised to find that I still had some strength, 'I bear no gifts.' To demonstrate, I opened my hands and displayed my empty palms before letting them drop to my sides, fatigued by the effort.

Confusion replaced some of the wariness I read in their faces, and guns dropped ever so slightly from the ready position.'d'what she say make sense to you?' the captain asked me, gesturing towards the pixie.

I smiled wryly. 'Contrary to popular belief, captain, not all Alliance officers are incompetent nitwits.'

'Coulda fooled me' the one called Jayne mumbled.

Ignoring him, I went on. 'I studied at the military academy. I know a line from the Iliad when I hear it. And the girl is right. I won't fight you. Can't fight you. Just leave me here to die. Go away, and let me be with my crew.'

'Not just as yet, I don't think,' the browncoat replied. I winced. Typical of a resistance man not to let a thing drop when he should. 'I'm Malcolm Reynolds, captain of the firefly that just found you floatin' about in the black. And what I'd like to know is how and where the reavers found you. I figure what, since my crew is still living and I'd like to keep it that way, I could use some information.'

'Well, captain Malcolm Reynolds, they didn't find us. We found them. And we found them, because we were looking.'

With that, the last of my strength gave out. I remember falling to the floor, and then there was black, and then there was nothing at all.