TITLE: The river in a lil albatross’ mind

AUTHOR: Yme

RATING: PG (at the moment)

PAIRING: Jayne/River Malcolm/Inara Zoe/Wash Simon/Kaylee

SUMMARY: Rivers point of view on things. Follows how river decides Jayne is the one for her and how she goes about getting him.

DISCLAIMER: Oh that I had a smidge of Joss Whedon’s genius. Sadly they are not mine. But I have a plan to seduce joss, be the other woman and get him to leave them to me in his will.

AUTHOR NOTE: Not Beta'd yet

I’m in the forest room, the one with the bad stick. The grid of the walkway is cold and I can feel it leaving little marks of the soft soles of my bare feet. It doesn’t hurt, its just sensation. It’s good to feel things outside my head, even better that it doesn’t hurt. It’s so quiet here. Safe. It helps.

I’ve gotten so quiet. You might think they forget I’m here, and for the most part, on days like today, when my head is quiet and I’m not being “crazy” I could walk right by and they wouldn’t see. Not me.

Simon thinks he always sees me, but he doesn’t. Not when he’s with his soft spot. That’s Kaylee, or his knives. When he’s with them he can pretend, pretty pretend that he’s there, not here, back where he should be, before me. When he remembers, the guilt is so cold it stings; I can always feel it, his sharp guilt, like a thousand nettles. Worst guilt comes when he’s been with Kaylee, shiny warm Kaylee, makes the cold after so much worse.

Every one of them could miss me except HIM. It started as fear of me and what comes for me, then after Ariel it changed, not fear, just wary of me but fear of Captain Daddy. Now it’s something else. The wary changed but still wary and there’s a wonderin’. I feel him look at me times and the heat starts. I’ve felt that heat before but never really for me.

Like on that one planet, in that house, oh the feelings they burned and stung and cut real deep. Poor Inara. She doesn’t understand that he found a kindred spirit. Doesn’t see that really she’s the fit, the match the other half. like Zoe and the dino man. I hope they see it soon, maybe I should help?

Later.

Now I’m walking. The grid is getting warm, turning and walking and turning for a while, and they think I don’t see. Well he does, thinks I’m just being “Gorram Crazy”, doesn’t know I’m watchin.

Shepard doesn’t see me. Not now. He’s still lost. They’re doing weights, something normal to fall back on, make them all feel safe. He’s so lost, like that girl in the rabbit hole, feels like a new verse, but and old verse, some things right, some things not. He fits here and that frightens him, worried who he was will come back and swallow him up, worried I’ll know but….

They don’t know, I know all the secrets, I keep them all, buried the box and hid the key.

I play with my hair and twirl again dancing a step with the hum of Serenity. She feels calm today, steady, solid.

Oh how I love solid. Reminds me of HIM. That big chest. I want to put my hands on it. Just flat out. Like to push but not.

I can still feel his eyes. He’s been lifting the weight a long while. Book is standing over him, their talking about what happened. About Early; and me. Real quiet like, so I can’t hear, but I can. Book is thinking too loud, it’s staring to hurt my head, all the little balls bouncing around. But I don’t want to leave. There’s heat, and for me this time I think. I like it and I don’t want to leave.

Zoe and wash are coming and there’s waves, crashing, they’ve been together again. Oh there crashing, I need to leave and go lie down for a while. But where? Serenity isn’t that big.

Oh there’s waves and heat and balls, bouncing and crashing and shimmering. I start to shake my head but they don’t fall out, just bounce and boil and crash. Oh, oh.

I’m sitting now, on the grid and the forests gone, its just metal and bolts and fire and taffy. The bars of the walkway are at my back and I start rocking, slow, back and forward, just like mama used to at home. Back and forward and side to side. It just won’t stop, it won’t go away there’s too much. It feels like falling but it hurts all the way down. There all down there, oh and now he sees me again and… oh no, no, the heats gone, it’s so cold without it, but there’s another, new.

My head is pressed into my knees and I’m rocking with my hands over my head, and wait, the new, it’s, huh, making the rest go all soft, its sort of woolly and fluffy all round me and then I’m floating and light, out in the wide verse, alone, but not. There’s a drum, behind the wall, next my ear. Thump, thump, thump. I like the floating. Then, like a nip or a pinch, it’s going away. I look up and I see Simon and the needles and the knives and I know what happened. He brought me here. I can already feel the scratches and stings and ropes. He’s angry. It’s like claws; like he wants to rip something. It makes me smile, he’s like a big cat, all fluffy and soft and sleepy but claws and teeth and muscle, but I still feel safe.

Damn. Simon stung me again.

I can see bubbles, big shiny bubbles. They’re floating and popping on walls and tables and beds. I realise I’m still smiling and even though I’m on that big shiny bed, I look down to where were joined. I have his fingers all in between mine like a puzzle that’s a perfect fit.

I know bubbles mean their kinda stunned. Captain Daddy had them that time I was the ship but not. Actually there were a lot of bubbles that day. Like all the little light thoughts just floated away, and for a moment its like totally quiet in my head but for the bubbles. Simon comes up to me all grumpy like, and makes the rest of the fluff go away breaks my puzzle. I try to fix it but he’s stepped away my head tips to the side and I’m looking at him looking at me, and I realise; he made the falling stop. He caught me.

~~~~~~

I don’t sleep any more. The hands are there, and when I’m sleeping they can find me. Simon doesn’t understand, the big dummy, thinks the nettles and stings make the bad and the broken go away. He doesn’t see that we’re all broken and once the bad gets in its awful hard to chase it off again.

If your lucky you can find a place where the bad is less important. Inara knows, her bad is less out here, in the black. Not like that place, where bad is all there is. And Captain Daddy. He’s all mixed up. All bad and good rolled up. Like a fancy ice cream flavour. I think he sort of needs the bad now. Helps him see the line, and when to cross, and not, and skip and hop.

Zoe is better. Dino man did that. He became more than all the bad for her. Their happy, its like…… like he wrapped her up in a big fluffy blanket with just him and her and all the bad was kept out. Still there but not were it can hurt so much.

I think I hurt Kaylee. She never had any real bad before. I know there were always reavers about, but their like dream bad. Never really touch you. But now the bad is all in her head and she doesn’t how to get it out. I think she blames me for that. Early did that to her. He came. For me. And he got Kaylee.

He was so broken that the only way he can keep the pieces is to break others. But he doesn’t see, doesn’t know that he lost some. Important ones. Like the mushy and the shiny. Heart and soul as Shepard would say.

Shepard Book and his little broken book. Hehehe. Its wrong you know. Not all. Just like….its like the whisper game, but the one who started it is long gone and the whisper just keeps going and all that’s left are twists of what there was. I know some. Its just out there, in the verse, waiting to be found, but ot doen’t quite fit what it should.

Who did I miss? oh yea. my 2 boys. Simon can go first and keep HIM for last.

Poor poor Simon.. Still thinks he can fix me. Doesn’t know I could fix myself mostly if they would all stop a bit. Its always stings and knives and nettles and daisys and waves and bubbles and heat.

That’s why I like it outside. It stops a little while. But not enough though. And he doesn’t see that by spending forever trying to unbreak me, he’s slowly breaking Kaylee. The big dummy. I think I need to hit him. Maybe I could get in his head and fix him. Hehe

Then theres HIM. My kitty. He’s soft you know. With a big tough shell. Someone broke the shell once, bad girl! Broke it to pieces. Took him a long while to pick them all up. But he was careful. He put them all back together. Now the shell is thicker, but hes still broken inside. “never kiss’em on the mouth”, protects his soft insides. I want them. To protect them. He doesn’t know that I could. I don’t think he’ll let me. Not after that time I cut him, but he didn’t see they were trying to get in, and I was still confused. Didn’t want to hurt him, never hurt him.

~~~~~~

AN: So? What you think? Be nice, its my first fanfic. I know i said this was River/Jayne, and it will be but the river in MY head carried me away, so i went with the flow and im learning as i go.