Another Firefly fic
May. 13th, 2007 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
auntiemeeshTitle: Not the Peaceful Sleeper
Fandom: Firefly
Rating: PG
Warnings: AU, future fic, a little bit dark, character death, mention of suicide
Prompt: She comes to me in dreams, a trainwreck beauty queen. Firefly/Serenity, for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
suenix.
Betaed by:apple_pi. Any remaining mistakes are all my own.
Word count: 912
Disclaimer: I own nothing and make no profit from this.
A/N: This is a glimpse into one possible future, had things happened differently in the episode 'Safe'. The title comes from the same song as the lyrics in the prompt - 'For the Restless' by Tom McRae. River has one line in here that is adapted from the song and one line that comes from the Big Damn Movie.
Not the Peaceful Sleeper
Simon turned away from his latest patient and ran his hands through the sanitizer spray. It was a luxury, one the clinic had only barely been able to afford, but it had cut down on the number of secondary infections by at least a third. Even after all the years he’d spent here, it still amazed him how minimal these people’s awareness of germs and infection was. He’d done the best he could to teach them, stressing the importance of cleanliness, but he’d long since been forced to realize that as much as lack of education hurt them, their poverty hurt more, and he could do nothing about that.
It surprised him, sometimes, to realize that in spite of everything, he was content here with this life that he’d never expected or wanted, but that somehow seemed to be everything that he needed.
The first months stretching into years here had been hellish. First there had been the waiting for Serenity to come back for him and River, to explain that it had all been a mistake, the crew had never meant to abandon them here. Then Simon had spent more time trying and failing to find a way, any way off this miserable excuse of a primitive, dirtball planet and back to something at least approximating civilized. But as primitive as the place was, and as angry as he was (with every right, he argued whenever anyone tried to convince him to accept his new circumstances, he’d been kidnapped), he had to admit that he was able to do some good here. And oddly enough, River’d been happy here as well, at least for a time. It never seemed to bother her that they’d been kidnapped and forced into some strange form of slave labor. Her ability to sense the emotional needs of the patients, especially the youngest and those unable to communicate in any other way, at first was eyed with deep suspicion by the villagers and only their desperate need of a doctor kept both Simon and River from being burned as witches. As time passed, though, and River did nothing that endangered or hurt anyone (despite some very odd and upsetting behavior on occasion), and in fact was able to reach some patients that medicine alone couldn’t help, the villagers began to look upon her with a certain pride.
He dreamed of her in the long, cold nights of the seemingly endless winters of this world. She came to him, sometimes sane, sometimes wild, sometimes crying like a heartbroken child; always beautiful and delicate, frighteningly strong and breathtakingly fragile at the same time. The mornings after those nights, he would close the clinic, bundle himself up and walk down the hill to the little sun-dappled glade where she rested.
“They raised me like a bruise,” she’d said to him that last day. “I’m bleeding.” She had been crying, tears and snot mixing and running down her face like the blood only she could see. “Put a bullet in my brainpan,” she’d begged. “Squish.” He’d tried to comfort her, but the bad days had been getting worse and the good days were fewer and farther between; she would not be consoled. And then there’d been the hunting accident, keeping him at the clinic for three days straight while he tried to prevent one of the young villagers from dying of a nasty gut wound. When he’d returned to their cottage, exhausted and depressed – the boy had died in the end, despite everything he’d done – he had been met with silence and the smell of dried blood.
He never found out where she got the gun, though how was no mystery – it would have been the work of a moment for her to steal it. She’d done what he wouldn’t, placing the bullet with almost surgical precision. She’d left him a long, rambling letter that made no sense whatsoever until he realized she was using the same code she’d used when she was at the Academy. In the end, all she’d said was “I’m sorry,” and “I love you,” and “I can’t do this any more.”
For a long time afterward, he hadn’t thought he could do it any more, either. But then, one day, the sun shone down and the leaves danced in the wind and he heard her voice whispering in the breeze, in the sigh of the leaves, the babbling of the brook and the scolding of the birds, and he realized that for good or ill, this was home. And then he was able to open up a little, hear other voices, and for the first time since his bright, beautiful sister was taken away from him by a cold, heartless government, taken and twisted into something other than a child, he began to live his own life.
And now, on the cold, endless winter nights that he dreamed of her – wild or desperate or happy – he would wake in the morning and visit her grave, tell her about his day at the clinic, his wife and three boys, and the little daughter he’d named River after an aunt she’d never meet. After, he’d return to his family and embrace his wife, and she would hold him tight until he could breathe again. Then he would take a deep breath, and open the doors of the clinic, and take up once again the laborious task of keeping his people whole and healthy.
Fandom: Firefly
Rating: PG
Warnings: AU, future fic, a little bit dark, character death, mention of suicide
Prompt: She comes to me in dreams, a trainwreck beauty queen. Firefly/Serenity, for
suenix. Betaed by:
apple_pi. Any remaining mistakes are all my own.Word count: 912
Disclaimer: I own nothing and make no profit from this.
A/N: This is a glimpse into one possible future, had things happened differently in the episode 'Safe'. The title comes from the same song as the lyrics in the prompt - 'For the Restless' by Tom McRae. River has one line in here that is adapted from the song and one line that comes from the Big Damn Movie.
Not the Peaceful Sleeper
Simon turned away from his latest patient and ran his hands through the sanitizer spray. It was a luxury, one the clinic had only barely been able to afford, but it had cut down on the number of secondary infections by at least a third. Even after all the years he’d spent here, it still amazed him how minimal these people’s awareness of germs and infection was. He’d done the best he could to teach them, stressing the importance of cleanliness, but he’d long since been forced to realize that as much as lack of education hurt them, their poverty hurt more, and he could do nothing about that.
It surprised him, sometimes, to realize that in spite of everything, he was content here with this life that he’d never expected or wanted, but that somehow seemed to be everything that he needed.
The first months stretching into years here had been hellish. First there had been the waiting for Serenity to come back for him and River, to explain that it had all been a mistake, the crew had never meant to abandon them here. Then Simon had spent more time trying and failing to find a way, any way off this miserable excuse of a primitive, dirtball planet and back to something at least approximating civilized. But as primitive as the place was, and as angry as he was (with every right, he argued whenever anyone tried to convince him to accept his new circumstances, he’d been kidnapped), he had to admit that he was able to do some good here. And oddly enough, River’d been happy here as well, at least for a time. It never seemed to bother her that they’d been kidnapped and forced into some strange form of slave labor. Her ability to sense the emotional needs of the patients, especially the youngest and those unable to communicate in any other way, at first was eyed with deep suspicion by the villagers and only their desperate need of a doctor kept both Simon and River from being burned as witches. As time passed, though, and River did nothing that endangered or hurt anyone (despite some very odd and upsetting behavior on occasion), and in fact was able to reach some patients that medicine alone couldn’t help, the villagers began to look upon her with a certain pride.
He dreamed of her in the long, cold nights of the seemingly endless winters of this world. She came to him, sometimes sane, sometimes wild, sometimes crying like a heartbroken child; always beautiful and delicate, frighteningly strong and breathtakingly fragile at the same time. The mornings after those nights, he would close the clinic, bundle himself up and walk down the hill to the little sun-dappled glade where she rested.
“They raised me like a bruise,” she’d said to him that last day. “I’m bleeding.” She had been crying, tears and snot mixing and running down her face like the blood only she could see. “Put a bullet in my brainpan,” she’d begged. “Squish.” He’d tried to comfort her, but the bad days had been getting worse and the good days were fewer and farther between; she would not be consoled. And then there’d been the hunting accident, keeping him at the clinic for three days straight while he tried to prevent one of the young villagers from dying of a nasty gut wound. When he’d returned to their cottage, exhausted and depressed – the boy had died in the end, despite everything he’d done – he had been met with silence and the smell of dried blood.
He never found out where she got the gun, though how was no mystery – it would have been the work of a moment for her to steal it. She’d done what he wouldn’t, placing the bullet with almost surgical precision. She’d left him a long, rambling letter that made no sense whatsoever until he realized she was using the same code she’d used when she was at the Academy. In the end, all she’d said was “I’m sorry,” and “I love you,” and “I can’t do this any more.”
For a long time afterward, he hadn’t thought he could do it any more, either. But then, one day, the sun shone down and the leaves danced in the wind and he heard her voice whispering in the breeze, in the sigh of the leaves, the babbling of the brook and the scolding of the birds, and he realized that for good or ill, this was home. And then he was able to open up a little, hear other voices, and for the first time since his bright, beautiful sister was taken away from him by a cold, heartless government, taken and twisted into something other than a child, he began to live his own life.
And now, on the cold, endless winter nights that he dreamed of her – wild or desperate or happy – he would wake in the morning and visit her grave, tell her about his day at the clinic, his wife and three boys, and the little daughter he’d named River after an aunt she’d never meet. After, he’d return to his family and embrace his wife, and she would hold him tight until he could breathe again. Then he would take a deep breath, and open the doors of the clinic, and take up once again the laborious task of keeping his people whole and healthy.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-05-13 10:43 pm (UTC)Poor River.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-13 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-13 10:53 pm (UTC)I know you told me the plot before I read it, but it was still so sad. That Simon could save a village but not his sister-- heartbreaking.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-13 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 12:54 am (UTC)find her condition too much to bear. In this scenario
she has no relief , unlike the " happy " ending supplied
in the movie. Skillfully done. I really like my little story.
Thanks!
Suenix
no subject
Date: 2007-05-14 01:43 am (UTC)