::swallows. mutely::

Damn! That was great.

::beams::

I'm sorry that they didn't do more with Inara, and with the idea of the Companions. 'Cause what we got in canon (and, you know, Firefly is probably my favourite Whedon show) was just a mess. But they could have done something like the Bene Jesserit, or something more Jacqueline Carey-ish, and that would have been just AWESOME. I loved the little glimpses we got, though - Saffron, for example - that suggested there was a whole lot more going on with the Companions than just the Pretty Woman schtick.

Anyway, another one. Shorter, this time:

v

It feels like having his throat severed by a blade so impossibly sharp that for a long, long instant the arteries don't realise their integrity is gone, and the blood continues to flow down its normal path. It feels like missing a step in the dark, and realising, all of a sudden, that one is in the wrong house. It feels like looking at one of those freaky images from Earth That Was, where you realise, all of a sudden, that the black lizards crawling on a white floor are actually white lizards crawling on a black floor. It feels like being gut shot. Like losing his Ma.

There's the shock, the stomach-churning instant of recognition, the fulcrum, and then – then the flood of bitter horror as the world shifts around him, and he understands how badly he has erred.

This is – he doesn't believe it, is the thing, even though his eyes are telling him, even though his ears are telling him, even though he can smell the blood and the stink of shit where a man's just been shot down in front of him. Too pretty to die. Oh, it's a joke, of course, always been a joke, but he's still always believed it. Believed God was looking out for him, believed his prayers were heard and weighed, and that when he threw himself crazy-reckless into danger, dragging Zoe along behind him, that he was somehow protected. That it couldn't happen to him. Not really. He's just playing, and he's special, after all. His Ma always said so – and although he knows that's what mothers say, apparently on some level he believed it anyway. He's big and strong and true of heart, he's a hero, all the girls tell him so. And he laughs at that, and jokes about it, but deep down he knows that he's an honourable man, and his cause is just. He knows that he has integrity in the very bones of him, and he's sharp enough to see that this is not true of everyone.

Sure, other people lose, other people die in stupid, pointless ways – but it could never happen to him.

They must all think that. It must be such a surprise, when they realise they ain't nothing special after all. He thought he was better'n that, wiser'n that. Thought he wasn't some wet-behind-the-ears cadet, full of dumb ideals. Thought he knew what he was doing. Thought that, underneath the bravado and the seat-of-the-pants heroics, he was still pretty smart. Still taking calculated risks, not simply throwing himself into danger. Thought he had someone up there on his side.

He's been a fool. He's been walking around with blinders on this whole time, pretending the world is other than it is. Pretending there's a God looking out for them, high-falutin' generals looking out for them; pretending that there's somebody, somewhere, who gives a shit about 'fair' and 'just' and 'rewards'. Somebody who'll notice how hard he tries, how bright he shines, and do right by him and his.

There's nobody.

There's just people, stupid people, ordinary people placing their trust in priests and in no-good sons of bitches in uniforms, and getting screwed over for their trouble. Getting shot down where they stand, no matter how young, no matter how brave, no matter how pretty.

Mal Reynolds looks out at the glittering lights over Serenity Valley, and listens to the sound of gunfire and dying soldiers, and his heart feels like someone has pierced it with a dozen fishhooks and is tearing it into pieces while he breathes.

There is no rescue. No cavalry. No God. There is nothing for a man to have faith in but the strength in his own two hands, (continued...)

( continues...) and the friend who's got his back.

His mama's crucifix slips out of Mal's fingers and falls into the mess of blood and shit spreading out from the soldier who lies dying at his feet.

Yes. That was when. Just like that.

You're amazing, Fay.

Oh, yes. Just, yes.

I'm running out of words, Fay.

Except: more.

Even though this is (coincidentally) Grenier's birthday, this post is not sponsored by Absolut, or Victoria's Secret, or any of the other companies that 'sponsored' Vinnie's last birthday.

Mrs. Ari waited in her living room, appointment book spread out before her, pen in her teeth. He'd seen her name on something on Ari's desk once, but he still thought of her as "Mrs. Ari" much as he had when he was fresh from Queens.He noticed that her blouse, nail polish and toes all matched. Really matchy rich women were the one group that tended to make Vince nervous, as if they could tell that E. had looked up how to eat with multiple forks in a book so that Vince wouldn't be embarrassed at the Oscars.Still, he did what only seemed to come naturally, and smiled brightly.

"Nice place you have here."

She made a notation in her book. "Well, I can only take a little credit. It was decorated, mostly. Still, you like to add your own little touches, right?"

Vince considered his own place...he supposed he understood, if herb, skin magazines, and playstation controls were "little touches." "Right."

"That was a nice thing you did for Sarah. Seventh grade is so hard. But I know you're not just on some movie star mission of mercy...not unless the business has changed that much since my Kendall Scott days..."

"I keep looking for a classy way to say this, Mrs. Gold, but if there is one, I need some scriptwriter to give it to me. But I'm seriously sorry about having sex in the closet during your benefit. I wasn't intending to create a distraction or anything....I'm just infatuated, and I'm sure you, along with most of this town, know I can't be trusted at times like that."

Vince wasn't really sure what to expect after letting this pour out of him so he was only a little startled when Mrs. Ari snapped her perfectly manicured finger and said "Mandy Moore, right?"

Motherfucker, Chase...how much of a punk were you that year? "Um, among others, yes."

"I'm sorry, Vincent...it's just that now I remember what I know about you.Hopefully the people in that theater watching "How to Deal" till Ari disrupted it are similarly forgetful."

"Ari did that!"

'Yes, my husband loves grand gestures...it's the day-to-day that is sometimes lacking."

"I guess, after what I did, I don't have much room to comment about that. It was mostly my idea...I just don't want you to have bad feelings about Dr. Cuddy from this."

"Well, you did disrupt the awards presentation. To put it mildly."

Something about the way she said that made him want to smile and he had to think of auto accidents to stop himself.

"So, are you in love with her?"

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

"Humor me...I'm an old married lady, far from the Hollywood gossip and I'm tempted to write a script just to get my husband's attention."

"I'm sure you'd come up with a good one, if you wanted to. Maybe I could play the gardener or something."

"Don't do that...running yourself down makes it easier for other people to do it; I used to be an actress. I know."

He wanted to say "no, you used to be a soap slut, and lick your lips and arch your back a lot." but then add a little more water and shirtlessness and that could be his gig in Head-On, too. He felt good about QB, but that didn't make him De Niro.

flails

Oh, Jesus, Erika - this is just SO awesome! You killed me with E looking up the cutlery, and the little flashes of self-knowledge. Honest to God, you nail them!

Meanwhile - oh, lord, I'm glad you thought the Mal one worked.

Part VI:

She doesn't do it for fun – although it is fun, in its way. It's thrilling, exhilarating, makes her heart race fast faster fastest (stimulates the adrenal gland) and it's a challenge, that's the thing, because although they are stupid, they are many, so many, coming for her in ravenous waves. It's like grappling with numbers computer-fast; like pulling together pieces of a puzzle made from shards of broken glass and building something beautiful. It's a dance with too many partners, and none of them know the moves – but she knows. She can see the patterns that govern each blow, each lunge. She's smiling inside, light-hearted and joyous and free; potent now, not just potential. Unrestrained. Perfect. And the reavers keep coming, furious and frenzied and unreasoning, scrambling over their fallen kin, and so River need not hold anything back.

It's ironic, in its way, because it is only here, with these unpeople, that she can be unapologetically herself. As she darts and ducks and swerves and turns, as she punches and slices and severs and kicks, her movements precise and pure and lovely, calculated and efficient, she reflects upon how strange it is that she should be unable to share her bliss with the ones who love her. That it's only here, with these poor, wretched creatures of pure craving, that she can let her mind and body do what they have been built for. Only here, amongst people too damaged to recognise her own strangeness, that she can be as strong and as whole and as human as she knows she is.

She hates the ones who did this to her, of course, because she knows that in important ways she's broken. They gave her a new edge, honed away the corners and the layers that should be there, and now she doesn't fit properly in the place that should be hers. A broken puzzle piece. Now she doesn't say the right things, doesn't quite speak the same language as her brother or his friends. She upsets him. She embarrasses him. Day by day, as he scrabbles around desperate to undo what was done, she breaks his heart. And River hates that so badly that she is sometimes racked with storms of helpless weeping, but she can't unknow the things she knows, can't remember how to be small and constrained, can't go back in time to become the little sister he remembers. She tries, though, for Simon's sake. She's always trying, always conscious of the weight of his fears and hopes. She tries to make herself small and unthreatening, and to pretend she is a normal girl.

No pretending here and now.

And although she is broken in those small, stupid ways, although she does not often remember how to play the social games, how to say unimportant things – this is what they gave her in exchange. She hates them, will probably always hate them, but she does not hate herself. She does not hate being able to keep her brother safe. She does not hate being able to hear and see and feel and move the way they have helped her to hear and see and feel and move. She does not hate becoming big. Powerful. And she has her freedom now – Simon bought her that - so she is not their tool. And she is strong in a way that she should never have been strong; she is something terrible, something glorious, something like a god, almost. An avatar, perhaps – although whose avatar, she does not want to know.

(But she thinks she knows, in spite of herself. Has seen his smile reflected, sometimes, in mirrors, has caught a glimpse of a man taller than Mal Reynolds, a man with red hair and a laugh that shakes the world. She thinks she shouldn't like him, but – he is honest, she knows. She likes that about him.)

Time passes. River Tam feels her limbs grow heavy, her muscles begin to ache, and her clothes are plastered tight against her skin with her own sweat and other (continued...)

( continues...) people's blood, but she does not slow her pace, does not hesitate, does not flinch. She is spinning like a Sufi, her flesh an extension of her will, perfectly calm and lost in something like worship as she hacks order out of chaos, and keeps her brother safe. Keeps Kaylee and Mal and Zoe and even Jayne safe, because they have been protecting her all this time, and they are the only friends she has.

When the last one falls, River is shocked out of her trance by the sudden absence and she stands there for a long moment, statue-still, coming back to herself.

No more names on her dance card. Midnight. Time to turn back into a pumpkin.

“That's my girl,” murmurs a voice she knows, and she blinks up unsmiling at the red-haired man. He looks like a pirate on Earth-that-was. A storybook figure, larger than life and slightly sad. He looks nothing like the girl with the fish and the changeable hair, but River can still see the family resemblance. She knows about protective older brothers.

He reaches out to ruffle her sticky hair, and she lets him. “Give Del a kiss, when you see her next?” he says, and then he is gone, and River is left panting softly in the stillness while the dust settles and blood drips slowly down her blade.