Author: Jacob
Disclaimer: Firefly and Farscape belong to some companies. The author does not own anything here.
Rating: PG
Recipient: hossgal
Characters: River (Firefly) & Kar D'Argo (Farscape)
Summary: River and D'Argo must work together to return to their respective families. But who is protecting whom?
He sleeps every night curled around her body, and honestly that's the part I like most. Not shot down is shiny, not getting caught and shipped back, excellent, showing excellent survival skills for someone in her circumstances is good, and no needles in the eyes is bâobèi every day it happens, every day without needles. But there's still that feeling, that this is why we're all here tonight, each night, so that she can feel this, and remember what it was like, before the Blue Sun rose, I think, and I laugh, because I still can. And she laughs, too, but it's not right, at the moment, it's not what he wants in this conversation. He's asked her a question. I let her worry it. I'm only thinking -- and she's thinking, too -- of what we'll have tonight. The memories we'll have in our arms when he and she are sleeping and don't notice.
His arms around her like she's still just somebody's mèimei and not a political football or a disaster waiting to happen to several governments at once. If she were back on my ship, if she were in serenity, serene, she might be able to say so, but here she just laughs, and her face can't even apologize, because she's been too scared, for too long. I'm not even scared, anymore, because it's been too long and it's inefficient, but she remembers. Her face remembers, her body remembers. The chemicals in her, and her body always running, they remember, and all those things that keep the body moving. She doesn't understand the future, what's to come. Not like I do, silent as I am. She doesn't understand that no matter the lies and no matter the fear, at the end of the day, when we rest, he'll be there, and tell her it's all right, by curling around her as they sleep. He's beautiful when he thinks there's danger. There's often danger.
Arms strong like Academy restraints -- that's the kind of jiao-zi lèsè that comforts her now, shattered as she is -- around her body, tentacles across her face like Mother's hair, like going back to cold sleep, neon-like, fetus-style, like being back in Simon's bed, both of us children and no tears, no real danger beyond what we pretended. Before both of us got broken, safe and no words, just sleep and no words. //poetry.words offers "pentacles" in place of "tentacles" because //poetry came before the rest of the 'verse, and after all it's only words. It's only ever words, and things that are words. Her body like a sentence, stepping across the blood and the story she leaves behind. Words are what protect us from the black. If she could tell them any one thing in this 'verse, I'd tell them this: Words are what protect us from the black.
He's full of words, worse than Simon, talking about their next step, and the one after that. Asking what Aeryn would do. Aeryn sounds like Book, always one step ahead, or Inara, always looking forward. He's not like them, not like this Aeryn. He's not like Inara, still so young, and he's starting to realize it. Talking about getting her back to her ship, and him to his, and her sailing out to the next stop and him starbursting away from this xiâoxin planet where they barely believe there's others in the 'verse, and only just can handle seeing them in port. On his fellis he remembers to call them bastards, but I think he's just used to avoiding rules. Like Inara, but he hasn't learned to do both yet, to follow and to lie.
It's the best and the worst part, this midnight embrace, because it also reminds me that she'll never be back. I don't have a mother, I left that with her. She got the arms around her and the Mother and Simon and everything, took it all with her and tiny needles and //library thoughts, and these arms around her body are only a substitute. One thing for another. She's just an abandoned planet, a ghost town, and I am the stripminer living there, the only one left, in a sea of silence and reflected light. The frontier is beautiful unless you're calling it home. Unless it's home for the first time.
He gets embarrassed, sometimes, when he wakes up to find her body in his arms. I can't tell him I don't mind, because he wouldn't understand. He wouldn't see it, he would probably think it's sick that I can be both, that sometimes I am Jothee, sometimes Chiana, in my mind as much as his. He'd call her a witch, or whatever he calls witches, if she said these words to him. To him, like they are to her now, these words are people and things and places and tears. He'd think I was crazy, but really it's just his craziness reflected back by her. When he touches her, he's not sure who he's touching. I can't tell him I'm not sure either.
He'd think I really was crazy, crazier than him, crazier than she is, some piece of fèi huà spent too much time out in the black, because all she could say to him is: "I am your son. I am your lover." If she could even get the words out. If she could even give me that much. More probably she'd cut loose with a scream, or try to steal his Qualta again, and wave it around, and he'd get scared and they'd both be embarrassed, but most of all me, because I only meant to say, "I won't let you down." Because first I think I want to protect him, and then she thinks she needs to protect him, and she can't tell him any other way than acting crazy. It always comes down to acting crazy, same here as everywhere that's not the Academy. And he doesn't deserve that, he deserves something better. He deserves someone he can count on, after all he's done for me.
When he thinks I'm Chiana, it's bâobèi that I'm crazy. He looks at her like a man looks at a woman, like Jayne looks at her, like Simon looks at Kaylee. Like he wants to protect her, from the Alliance, from the 'verse, from all there is around that wants to hurt her. Like there are Reavers at the door. He smiles and spreads out wide, and talks to her more, so she will say the things I'm trying to say. One day I thought, I couldn't see what he was doing, why he was so intent on taking me home to Serenity, but all she could say was, "I've gone blind." He started crying. He won't tell me why.
But when he thinks I'm Jothee he gets so much older. He acts like Mal, or Zoe, so scary and bigger somehow, like when Kaylee got hurt. Like when she got three in one on Ariel. He understands shooting with your eyes closed. That's how I know to trust him. He touches his gun, or sword, or whatever, and he touches the controls on our little ship -- I didn't know you could fit two in one so small! I remember her, in the time before, and how she would have laughed. She would have laughed at Serenity, before they were sisters, before she was home, for being so small, but this tiny ship, more like a gun than a house, makes her laugh, and those times we're laughing together -- and tells her there's nothing more important than making sure she's protected.
And I understand it. I knew he was a friend from the moment I smelled him, the moment he took me by the waist and fought past those chùsheng xai-jiao de xiang huo guards, fire all around us, and barrelled toward his ship. Toward the black, with me in tow. And neither of us with the bâobèi in hand. I asked him, later, if he felt bad for not grabbing the rutting loot, and he laughed. "I think I did," he said. I taught him to call me mêilì, told him it meant I owed him my life. He's an innocent, like Kaylee. Like Mal: for all his fighting he still doesn't understand how much you can break a person into pieces. He's just so young. I don't want him to know, so I don't tell him what happened. He's better for it. They've already gotten so many parts of him, and now I am Jothee, and I don't let her show him what they did.
He tells me that Moya is alive. I can't disagree with her when I say, "So is Serenity."
When we lie in bed, awake, we do not touch. It's obvious. I'm obvious, I flinch, and he's obvious, he's lost. He tells me things. He was telling me about the Shepherd they have on his ship, and I shivered. He asked me what was wrong, and I asked him about his Shepherd, but I was all sudden connected to //library.wave and what she said was "black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon." He said his Shepherd was blue, and lovely, and bald as Paradiso. Lovely? They got to have women Shepherds. With no hair. Even with skin of blue that was nearly enough to say, "Hâo le, stop working so hard to find Serenity. I'm coming with you, I'll wave Simon later."
So we negotiate, we work together on it, we don't mention the sleeping situation. The second night I wanted to say something, but I was somehow on //library and all she could say was, "Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above," and he didn't really understand it, and I only barely did, but she smiled like it was real, and he looked at her all funny and piled another pillow between us. Which disappeared later. I thought it was funny, that night. Sometimes it's all so funny, and she laughs along with me, and it just makes him uncomfortable. He says she reminds him of John, when she says things like that. I wonder if John was in the Academy. I wonder what they did to him. If he's captain in the story -- sometimes it's John, sometimes D'Argo, sometimes Aeryn, and I think of Mal and how he would react; if it were Zoe or Kaylee I think he'd laugh and take a nap -- that was the second night we slept in one bunk.
I say as much as I'm allowed. I can't talk the way she used to, I can't throw all my dreams on the wall to look at, as she could when we were young. When Simon would say, "You're crazy. Bèn dàn, you're a crazy girl." It was hard to remember those times, on Serenity with him looking at her, because Simon knew when she was thinking how hard it was, those nights when it got bad and she couldn't tell him what I feel, and she saw him think to himself, "I used to call her crazy." Because by then he could see that I was broken, and he could think that he did it. Survivor guilt. Couldn't tell him I knew, couldn't tell him I could see very well that she was broken, thank you very much, chûnrén. Couldn't tell him anything, anyhow. Only riddles and lies and jokes and stories and little images tied together, for him. Riddles to bring him to the truth, just like before. "I am smaller than a breadbox, but lighter than air." I'm the secret you can't tell anyone. I am your burden. I am the new reason you breathe.
But that won't work with the one who saved me, this strange warrior with rings in his chest and armor all around. Riddles make him impatient. He wouldn't understand our jokes, or how I know all about him in the cock of his elbow, the set of his face, the corner of his anger when we're too exposed. The edge of his voice when he lies: "She's my student. We're visiting this planet for education." The fear when he looks at her. The shaking when he wakes and can't remember where she came from. When we get back to Simon, he'll explain it all, D'Argo will sit still and Kaylee will say, "We don't have fellis juice but we do have moonshine," or whatever Kaylee will say. They'll be overjoyed to see a stranger, dance around each other like old marrieds, Simon and Kaylee, like Wash and Zoe, or Zoe and Mal, and she'll distract big D'Argo from the apology and the awkwardness, and Simon will supply it, because that's what he does best. They won't know they're doing it, and that is what's beautiful, and that's what Mal will cry happily about later in his bunk. Mal understands love, and beauty, and wraps it in reeds.
And Simon will stick to 'verse talk proper, instead of all this pinyin, and D'Argo's head won't hurt anymore, and Simon will say thank you, and I love you, and you were the only hope of saving my life and preserving the sacred secret of our training, and all the things I can't say anymore. That's what he's best for. Explaining. Explaining makes him beautiful, same as not explaining makes Inara beautiful. Same as planning makes Mal beautiful, or thinking for Wash, or fighting for Zoe. Or loving makes Shepherd, hair and all. And when I see D'Argo looking at me, and thinking I am precious, I am bâobèi when I am Jothee. I am beautiful when I am a victim, and there's no hate in that.
He gave me a science lesson, when I asked. He said aliens were like TV. //library explained and I laughed, properly this time, and he laughed back, and I was happy like the sunshine on my face, and she was happy like a problem solved. He told her that pain never stopped him, not so far, and she echoes it back: "Pain never stopped us." When she repeats, it means I love the person, but there's no way for him to know it. His face tells her she's too young to understand. He should know better than that, but I can't tell him. He told me that he can only heal when his blood runs clear. Until then it's just waiting, and good company. She tells him he's good company, but he doesn't understand what I mean. He doesn't know how clear he makes me feel, with his good company. Sometimes I feel like Inara, dancing just beyond Mal's reach, and sometimes I feel like Kaylee, breathlessly laughing in mine. One day I will bleed clear, and every conversation won't be a riddle for everyone, and I'll dance on purpose, instead of just letting her go for it. There's no joy in it, for me, when she dances. I won't really dance until the blood runs clear.
I'd been on this fèi huà Miranda, where nothing was happening and nothing was going to happen, where nothing could be stolen but dust, about 900 minutes when the gôu pì started. They weren't Alliance, but they were bad news -- locals hired in for the week, grumbling about aliens and any amount of complaints I'd heard a thousand times in the Academy -- and they weren't allowed to let a mèimei cào like me past without a certain amount of filthy ribbing. One of them caught a look at my face and was swift enough to remember where else he'd seen it. I saw it in his eyes, the look, that hungry look they get past the Outer Rim when they think it's worth something. And she killed him. And then I don't know, I don't remember, but I know she was running. And then there was him, and his arms around her, and the ship going clear, and the woman's strange, clipped, Alliance voice over the wave, "Moya's going to have to starburst, we'll come back for you," and his eyes went soft and he said, "I know you will," and his arm was still around her, because she was fighting him still, and he looked her in the eyes, almost as if he could see past her, through her into me, and he said, "But not until I find the place you go."