rivendellrose | halloween fic the 2nd!

Title: Clear Brightness
Series: Firefly/Serenity
Characters: whole cast, emphasis on River, Mal, and Zoe.
Warnings: This is a post-Serenity fic - big damn spoilers!
Author's Note: Yes, I know the Chinese day of the dead is celebrated in April. But it's close enough in spirit to Halloween that I wanted to use it. If I have time, I'll write something happy and fluffy with regular American Halloween in mind, later.

“Mei mei? What are you doing?”

River didn’t look up from her scraps of brightly-colored paper, her tongue poking out a bit between her lips as she concentrated on her calligraphy. “Making money.”

In the two months since the incident at Mr Universe’s lair, Simon had become convinced that at least the most troubling aspects of River’s instability had finally faded away. A bit like lancing an infected wound, he supposed, seeing all the information on Miranda put together at last had purged the worst of what plagued her mind. At least that had been his theory until now.

“Mei mei... you can’t just make money.”

He couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or insulted when she rolled her eyes, looking at him as though he was a complete idiot. “Not real money. Spirit money.”

“Spirit money,” Simon repeated slowly. “For... what?”

“For Tomb-Sweeping day. It’s tomorrow, and I need a lot of spirit money for the altar.”

“Riiiight.” He vaguely recalled the holiday from their childhood, and from later celebrations while in Medacad, which had mostly been an excuse to cut studies and do more than the usual amount of drinking. Most of what he remembered from the former seemed to involve kites, and their mother telling stories of their great-great grandparents, who’d made the trip from Earth that was and settled on Osiris. He couldn’t recall River taking much of an interest in the proceedings before... but that was back when the dead were just names, images in holos and pictures around the house, and stories half-remembered from passing commentary by their parents, not friends who two months ago had laughed and joked at dinner, or sent long and intelligent letters from religious retreats. “River... I don’t think Shepherd Book and Wash need money, wherever they are.”

She sighed. “It’s not tangible or quantifiable, Simon.”

“Alright... if you think you need to do it, go right ahead. Just...” It was on the tip of his tongue to ask River to keep it from Zoe, but all his sister’s attention was on her calligraphy, and he doubted the reminder would be necessary, anyway. With luck, she’d have forgotten all about this in something more important by tomorrow. Ruffling her hair softly on the way, he returned to the infirmary. Rather than helping the dead, time would be better spent making sure the rest of them didn’t join their former comrades too soon.

By the next evening, he would very much regret that decision.

* * *

“I didn’t think you had cooking duty tonight, little one.”

River looked up from her intent examination of the steaming pan on the stove. “Hello, Captain. I traded with Kaylee. She’s busy fixing the grav-couplers.”

“Well, that was real nice of you.” Mal lifted the gingham napkin that covered one of the wooden bowls. “Hey, fresh dumplings, I didn’t think you--ow!” He pulled his hand back, glaring at River, who had already returned the wooden spoon she’d just used on his fingers to its proper job stirring rice frying in a skillet. “What’d you do that for?”

“No eating before we’ve all sat down.”

How a seventeen year old girl managed to give him a look that reminded him so strongly of his mama, Mal didn’t think he’d ever understand, but instinct took over and he wandered away, trying to look casual and, he expected, failing miserably at it.

“Hand caught in the cookie jar, Cap’n?” Kaylee smirked as she entered the mess hall.

“Didn’t think our little River’d be such a tyrant in the kitchen. How’d you survive growing up with her, Doc?” Sure enough, there was the second Tam, following behind Kaylee like a second shadow.

Simon grinned at his sister as he pulled out Kaylee’s chair. “She was smaller, back then. And a bit less prone to violence. She just made a fool of me with my schoolwork, instead.”

“If that’s how your mama was with cooking, I’m surprised either of you grew to full-size.”

“Not to say River’s full-sized.” Jayne pounced down on his chair as if he thought it’d run away from him if he didn’t sit fast enough. “Girl’s ‘bout the size of a grasshopper, come down to it.”

“Big enough to put you in your place, if memory serves,” Mal pointed out, unfolding a napkin on his lap.

“I could take ‘er over my knee, now I know what to expect."

Kaylee blinked, then suffered a coughing fit that sounded suspiciously like stifled laughter, while Simon’s face showed off a surprisingly vivid series of colors, ranging in a spectrum from white to red. Inara, who had just entered the kitchen in time to hear his statement, paused on the threshhold, seemed to consider saying something, and then shook her head and went to the stove to make herself some tea.

Apparently ignorant of the stir his last words had caused, Jayne took a swig of tea and pressed right on. "Anyway, her takin’ out a whole ship of Reavers all by her lonesome makes that a bit less insultin’, now, doesn’t it?”

“Might want to watch words like that, Jayne. Somebody might think you were meaning something a bit less than pure.” Mal smiled at the merc's perplexed expression, then turned his attention to watching River as she served out fried rice, the little dumplings that had earned Mal his struck fingers, and a few each of some sort of sticky sweet that smelled of red bean paste. Rather than just passing bowls as they usually did, she walked around the table in a methodical clockwise circle that he thought charmingly old-fashioned until she got ‘round past Jayne and he noticed that she’d pulled the eighth and ninth chairs back out of storage where Zoe’d stowed them the night they got back to the ship after the operative released them all.

A buzz of gooseflesh ran up Mal’s neck, and he looked up to find River watching him, staring right into his eyes as though challenging him to speak up. Of course she knew what he was thinking - she knew what everyone at the table was thinking, maybe even those that didn’t know surely themselves. At least Zoe hadn’t come down yet. There might still be time to spare her, much as he was sure he'd be gut-shot if she knew he thought of it that way.

Just as River set down a plate at the first of the empty seats, Mal saw Simon’s eyes widen. He’d finally realized what his sister was doing. “River...”

“I told you, it can’t be quantified. Let the living care for the living, let the dead care for the dead.”

Beside Simon, Kaylee’s face went pale as the plate in front of her. A clatter from the kitchen informed Mal that Inara'd heard, too, and probably dropped her tea canister.

“Morbid and creepifyin’ might be okay in the best of times, little albatross, but now really ain’t--”

“River, how many times have I--”

“She knows she’s not dead, but she can still hear them, anyway. Closer to them, because of what was done. Especially now. They’re coming.” She tilted her head, listening. “One of them is - the other is content where he rests. Belief took him where he wanted to go, fixed him like he said it would.”

Simon and Mal shared a look that ended in simultaneous nervous glances at the door. “River, that’s enough. Zoe will--”

“The wife will understand. Mourning is as much for the living as it is for the dead. She can't, won't let herself, so the broken girl does it for her.”

Simon stood, circling the table to kneel at his sister’s side. “Mei mei, I know you’re trying to do this out of kindness, but I don’t think Zoe needs this. It’s only been two months, and--”

“Problem, Doctor?”

Simon’s whole body went rigid. He’s still a horrible liar, even if he did manage that one heist. Mal had to give him credit, though - the boy schooled his features as best he could before turning, and put on his most casual voice. Too casual, Mal knew, for Zoe to buy it. But at least he’d tried.

“No, nothing’s wrong. I was just telling River that she... ah... she...”

“Simon disagrees with my interpretation of today’s festival,” River interrupted. “The shepherd is happy where he is, but Wash wanted to come home. Food for both of them, but there’s no one to eat the essence of the shepherd’s food. It won’t go to waste, though.”

Mal rather thought that a core breach would be preferable to watching his first mate’s face. Not because she was horrified or angry or even sorrowed by what River said, but exactly because she wasn’t. The dark eyes that hadn’t moved with emotion since that night stayed pools of darkness, still and cold. By unspoken agreement, Wash’s death had been a tragedy unnamed between the seven living crew, particularly when his widow was within hearing, but seeing Zoe’s complete lack of reaction finally keyed in to him exactly how completely she’d shut herself off. He’d forgotten, in a few years, how little she was willing to show when hurt touched her.

“He wanted to come home.”

Mal flinched. He’d heard that flat tone far too many times, back during the war, usually pronouncing death for one of their comrades.

“Not for good,” River amended. “But for the night. It’s not hard for him to find us, while we’re still here on Serenity - he knows her better than anyone except maybe Kaylee and I, and she knows him. Besides, he’s been following us. Didn’t you know?”

“Can’t say I did, at that. And you set out food for him.”

“That’s what you do on Tomb-Sweeping Day. We can’t go back to sweep his grave, but the wind takes away the dust and sand, so I don’t think he’ll mind. He likes the wind. Leaf on the wind, and now that’s what he is, just like always." She paused, thoughtful. "Except different, now.”

“Mei-mei...” Simon tried to turn his sister to face him, but she shrugged off his grip on her shoulder and shook her head.

“Like when you told me I wasn’t ready to climb the big tree at the Lee’s estate, Simon - I know what I’m doing.” River glanced up at him through her hair, a soft smile crossing her pale lips. “I’m not a glass doll, anymore, but I’m still different. The fractures don't want to come apart, but they still refract the light. Some things don’t come back the same when you put the pieces together, they’ll never fit the same way again. They’re made for a different purpose, now. I know it's hard." She touched his cheek, for all the world as if she were the older sibling and he the recalcitrant wild child who couldn't understand reality in the 'verse. With all she'd seen, maybe that was the truth, now.

Simon, apparently smart enough with all that schooling to see when he’d been beaten, backed off, looking a bit shell-shocked. Bad enough to know your sister was a Reader, Mal supposed, but another thing entirely to hear her claim to hear the dead. Especially when the wife of that dead was staring at that sister as if she could disassemble the girl’s words and put them back together in sensible, real-world fashion just by sheer force of character. If anybody could do it, it was Zoe, but for the sake of peace...

“Let’s just get this food eaten before it’s cold, people. Dong ma? Unless that’s not alright by you, little one.”

Blessedly - and that wasn’t a word Malcolm Reynolds used lightly these days - River nodded and picked up the two extra plates, humming something low and unrecognizable to Mal's ear. From the stricken expression on Simon’s face, he guessed he was lucky of not knowing what it meant, but it didn’t save him for long. River moved around the table, carefully portioning out food from both of the spirit plates for each person around the table, and intoning in a low voice and a language Mal didn’t understand. “Réquiem ætérnam dona eis Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat eis. Requiéscant in pace. Amen,” she finished, spooning the last (and largest, Mal noted) portions onto Zoe’s plate. Zoe looked at the food, then lifted her eyes to River, wide and near-blank.

“Shepherd didn’t use Latin, but the old words are best sometimes. He would’ve liked them. And Wash wouldn’t mind,” River added, smiling. “It isn’t what you believe in, just that you believe. Isn’t that right, Captain?” Without waiting for a response - more likely, knowing she wouldn’t get one - River leaned down close to Zoe’s ear. “Eat up. Little souls and big souls all start out from the same place, and the black isn’t so lonely as it used to be. The waiting will take a long time, but you need food for the journey. He already took what he needed. Now it’s our turn, to take what’s left and remember.” She moved to step away and return to her own chair, but was stopped by Zoe’s hand on her arm.

“What do you mean by that?”

River smiled again, fey and bright. “The words won’t come, but your body knows what your mind hasn’t noticed yet. For now, it’s our secret - his and mine, and yours for your mind to learn when you’re ready.”

Zoe looked long and hard into the smaller woman’s eyes, and for one crazy split second Mal was afraid he’d have to step in to stop them coming to blows over whatever mystery it was that hung in the air between them, even though he wasn’t sure anymore who he’d be protecting. Then she nodded slowly, her hand dropping from the girl’s arm. “We’ll talk later. When I’m sure.”

“I already am.”

“Maybe so, but I’m not.”

“Thought someone said she wasn’t crazy anymore,” Jayne grunted. “Now she’s even got Zoe talkin’ nonsense.”

Zoe didn't even spare him a glance. “It ain’t nonsense, Jayne, just because you can’t understand it.”

River returned to her chair and sat, prim as a porcelain doll, and ate her dinner in silence that the rest mimicked - the normal chatter and lull of conversation just didn’t seem right, just then, and no one could quite find words to push past the silence. After all the food had been eaten, River walked around without a word to gather the dishes and set about to washing them. Even though Mal doubted it was her turn, no one seemed too eager to take over, or, for that matter, to say anything to her at all. Zoe watched for a moment with steady, considering eyes, and then stood up and headed for the crew dorms. Mal was more than a little afraid of what he'd find when he caught up to her, but her stride was as confident and steady as always, head held high and her back straight. Only knowing her as long as he had made him notice the way her fingers clenched and unclenched, a compulsive, repetitive motion betraying her emotions.

“Girl’s always gonna be a bit unhinged, Zoe, but I had no idea she’d take it that far. Doc was tryin’ to stop her just when you came in and we’d only just found out that minute--”

Zoe turned on her heel and fixed him with her usual level stare, the one that always made him wonder why the hell she was the one taking orders. “Why would you stop her?”

Mal blinked. “I... you know she ain’t right, and people... Zoe, you and I seen a lot of death in our day, we sure as hell never seen a ghost.”

“Still haven’t. But she hears ‘em. We’ve known that some time, now, ever since that ship that was hit with Reavers.”

“That’s what it seemed, yeah, but...”

“And on Miranda? And how she hears the Reavers comin’, when there’s no way she ought to?”

“Now that’s a bit different--”

“I don’t see as it is, Captain. Once you get as far as knowing she’s a Reader, ain’t far to believing she hears ghosts, is it?”

Mal's mind floundered on unfamiliar ground. Solid, practical Zoe couldn’t hardly be suggesting what he thought she was... and yet that was the only answer made any kind of sense for what she was saying.

“She hears what we don’t, sees what we don’t... Mal, if the girl says my man came back tonight, the best I can say is that if anybody could do it, it’d be him. I’d hardly doubt anything of him. Even now.” Her fingers clenched again, and she released and straightened with visible effort.

He smiled, slow and sad, and clasped her shoulder. "I think you've got the right of that, at least, mei mei."

"You know I'll have to shoot you the next time you call me that, Captain."

"That I do." He leaned his forehead against hers, still smiling. "I'd worry if you didn't."

* * *

Réquiem ætérnam dona eis Dómine; et lux perpétua lúceat eis. Requiéscant in pace. Amen.

Current Mood: accomplished

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

jadecat.livejournal.com

More? Please?

I loved, LOVED "Jayne pounced down on his chair as if he thought it’d run away from him if he didn’t sit fast enough.

You definitely have the style down.

From:

rivendellrose.livejournal.com

*Laughs* I'm glad that came across well enough!

Thanks!

Finding Peace For the Moment

halloween fic the 2nd!

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