Fic: 'She's coming in 12:30 flight' (Firefly, gen, G, 1/1) Title: She's coming in 12:30 flight Fandom: Firefly Characters: Inara, River Word Count: 808 Rating: G Spoilers: 'Objects in Space', Serenity Disclaimer: No one mentioned belongs to me. Summary: Inara and River share insights.
She's coming in 12:30 flight
The voices in Inara's head bothered her in her silent moments, speaking up while she cleaned her shuttle, arranged her various hangings, and sprayed her subtle but distinctive scent. Annoying little bungers, as the captain would say, that reminded you of all the things you wanted to say, all the places and times you had the chance to say it, and every instance where 'good judgment' won out. Mal hadn't argued for her to stay, and all this time she had blamed that on him, on his inability to admit truths. A task which fell equally to her shoulders. Mal hadn't argued for her to stay, because she hadn't provided him with any incentive as to why he might. If she'd told him the truth...
"None of it means a damn thing."
"River?" The girl had a habit of showing up in places with no prior warning. She rarely wore shoes and moved like a cat; no wonder the Alliance had wanted her as a weapon. And though Inara knew instinctively that River was less of a threat to the crew nowadays, she had seen firsthand what the girl was capable of, and was still on occasion frightened by River's habit of popping up.
The girl stopped being fascinated by the floor, and looked up to meet Inara's questioning gaze with a disturbingly serious one of her own. Still, ever since Miranda, River had been more or less sane. Perhaps that was what bothered Inara, the clarity in the girl's eyes. "It was what the captain said to me. Before you left. He didn't know he was saying it, but it was said. 'None of it means a damn thing.'"
"The captain..." Inara began weakly.
"Needs you," finished the girl. "Yin needs yang, positive ions need negative ions, everything has a counterpart, and equal but opposing force. Balance." She was starting to delve back into her usual cryptic way of speaking. Things that seemed like nonsense on the surface, but were actually a lot more dangerous than that. "But it's more than that. He wants to need you."
Unable to stop herself, Inara asked, "And how do I feel about this?" Years upon years of Guild training burned into her, making people read what they wanted to read from her understated expressions. Making them believe what they desired. But River could see past all of that, down straight to the core of Inara, one that Inara herself hadn't seen in awhile.
"You like it," said River with unnerving calm. "You want to be needed, to be wanted."
Well, of course she did. She was a Companion, after all, and not being wanted or needed put an effective end to her career.
The way the girl was looking at her, it was clear that she was not supposed to think about it from a practical point of view.
"'Why did you leave?'" River quoted. "'Why didn't you ask me to stay?'" It was a conversation that Inara knew all too well, one that she had played in her mind over and over again, wondering why she'd asked in the first place, wondering what he would have said. She thought she knew, but it would have been nice to hear it from Mal's own voice.
River tilted her head and gave Inara a placid smile, pity in her eyes. "You two are increasingly impractical. Nothing lasts forever in the black. You should seize on to what you have, in case the ship spins out of control." Even though she seemed to be speaking in riddles on and off again, the girl looked more lucid than ever. Inara was shaken to the core, confused and frightened almost that River would choose a rare moment of sanity and devote it to the Companion's own issues with the captain.
"So do you listen in to all conversations, or just ours?" she asked, her tight voice an unfortunate tell.
"All of them," River said with a grin that was as girlish as her age proposed. "But I only remember some."
Suddenly Inara was rewarded with a flash of the ship's mechanic, and how closely this conversation mirrored the ones that she herself would have with Kaylee, her only true compatriot on the ship. The silly looks that would pass between them, the teasing words, the silent commiseration.
Relief flooded Inara, enough so that she couldn't remember why she'd been tense in the first place. River was no more dangerous to Inara than Inara was to Kaylee, and was no more likely to reveal her secret. A grin splashed across Inara's face, as unrestrained and free as she ever got. She reached out and tousled River's hair slightly, and the girl blushed and ducked her head.