Disclaimer: Sadly I do not own any of these wonderful characters, or even the setting and world of Firefly. They all belong to Fox/Universal and Joss Whedon.

James Norrington and related belongs to Disney, Gore and Ted and Terry.

Setting: Takes place right after Down the Aisle

Pairings: Kaylee/Simon, Mal/Inara

Can’t Stop the Music

Chapter 15: Nocturne

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The Lessons River had heard from her captain were repeated in her mind as she walked back to the helm. There were the basic lessons, how to slow down once the reached a planet’s atmosphere, don’t take off too fast. She had learned the tricks from his verbal instructions and she had learned the other lessons, the ones she would not learn in flight school. Her captain taught her about how to have love for the ship, to make it dance amongst the stars, to have it soar like an eagle, and to sail. He was not kidding when he had said the sky was his ocean.

River had also learned several lessons from Wash. She had watched him fly, read what he was thinking when he was trying several tricky maneuvers. She had yet to try one herself and thought she should practice the other shuttle. She had also read thoughts she shouldn’t have seen from Wash. The ones when he thought about Zoë and the few times she had walked in on the two both in a deep embrace and kissing passionately. It had filled with a strange feeling, like a fire that flowed within.

She had felt that fire once again recently. Whenever she was alone with James she felt her whole body tingle. He had often stopped by at the helm, stood behind her chair while she flew. He could never tire of watching stars was what he had said. The fire burned within a few seconds ago. When he had paid to free Apollo from slavery and willing to part with his large amount of money, she could no longer hold back and had to embrace him. All her senses were filled. The sound of his breathing and heartbeat, his natural musk mixed with the shower gel and shampoo he liked, the warmth of his body and his arms when he embraced her in return, the sight of his beautiful green eyes and smile. She yearned to taste him. She just wanted one kiss, and that was when the embrace ended and she headed back to the helm.

“Arousal is the fire,” she whispered. River had felt the arousal shared by Wash and Zoë, and now she felt her own arousal. She was an adult; over eighteen and she had grown up in her mind. She will only play tag if Kaylee wishes. She had fallen in love and now she wants something more. “I want to have sex.”

“Whoa,” Captain froze behind her. His blue eyes twice as large as usual and his hands held up. “That is something I can’t help you with.”

“I’m sorry,” River felt her whole face grow hot. “The blood flow has increased in my cutaneous resistance vessels.”

“Say that again in plain English?” Mal slowly lowered his hands.

“Captain dummy talk?” River raised her eyebrows.

“That would be it.”

“They capillaries under the skin on my face have increased. Is that dummy enough?”

Mal nodded. “Just enough to sink in my hard head. Didn’t know I was here?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t even hear you.”

“And you decided to think out loud,” he brushed past her. “Things I shouldn’t know about, things that…good God I can’t know about. You have to be careful when you say things like that. What if it was your brother who walked in, or Jayne?”

River shuddered. “He would say something crude and disgusting, invite me to his bunk, and be a willing offer.”

“Exactly,” Mal held up a finger. “And I know he aint your type.”

“What is my type?” River took her place at the pilot’s chair. One of the plastic trees was lying on its side. She picked it up and placed it next to the other tree.

“Now that is a peculiar notion. I don’t know what exactly your type would be, but I reckon the commodore is close.”

River felt the heat return to her face as she adjusted herself in her chair.

“Don’t want to be mentioning your idea for a good night with him. We don’t need him to suffer from a heart attack.”

“I would never,” she continued to stare at the plastic trees. “My idea for a good night would be walking into town with him, and watching a movie on the cortex, just me and him, and he would kiss me. I want to kiss him and be kissed. I want to shield him from pain, both the pain on our skin and inside. I want to be with him for eternity.”

“Sounds like you have fallen hard for him.”

“I never felt this before. I had crushes, before they took me away and cut into me, but not this feeling. It is called love, but it feels different than what I feel for Simon and you, and Kaylee and the others.”

“You normally love your family different from the one you fell in love with.” He pressed a button on the cortex. “I got to send a lot of waves out.”

“You are going to contact the Alliance.”

“I have to send word out to everyone. I know you hate em as much as I do.”

“Not them,” she did not hate the government officials who do their business in their offices, or the soldiers who do try to keep the universe safe, fighting against real pirates, and other criminals. She only hated those like the Operator, the members of parliament, correction the old members of parliament. Many of them had resigned after the truth of Miranda, and those were those in the center, those who had known all. “Not the ones you fought, just those who made me and Miranda.”

“Guess it is just hate by association.”

“They didn’t do it this time,” she had seen some of the people who had enslaved Apollo. He did not put up a curtain; he showed all. She had seen the brown leather coats several of them wore. She stopped reading when she had seen and was about to feel the lash. “Your people did it.”

“No,” Mal shook his head. “My people did not do this.”

“Your people did, they became shop owners and folk like you, they became pirates, and they blew up a factory and took Kaylee hostage.”

“Katy ain’t like other pirates,” Mal did not loose his scowl. “She and her crew are good folk, not into the pain thing. They have their own code, know how to show mercy. Tracey was a special case. He was frightened and there was a lot of miscommunication going on.”

“Declan.” River pointed out the former independent who blew up a factory on Verbena.

“That wasn’t the Declan I knew. The second he had done that act he was no longer one of my people. The same goes for those who did what they did to Apollo and his family and neighbors.”

“We have communication,” she noticed the blinking light on the console. Someone had picked up the signal and was responding.

“Got it,” Mal pressed the button. “You concentrate on getting us back to Beaumonde.”

“Sarge,” Captain Katy Chalmers appeared in the screen. “Sorry, I mean captain.”

“Still at attention,” Mal nodded. “I got some information for you. Do you know of any former Browncoats who might be in the slave business?”

Katy chewed her bottom lip as she tried to think. “I don’t know if any are in the business. The Widow Obrin might know. I think she has a few.”

“Thank you, I need you to keep an eye out for anyone who owns a slave, if they are in their teens and twenties ask them about Eros, any older and see if they have their tongues missing.”

Katy made a face. “What?”

“There is another secret out there, not quite as big as Miranda, but pretty much not known or in denial. There was a colony, settled on a rock named Eros not long after the war. Some group attacked them and those they didn’t kill they enslaved. They scattered now, separated the colonists as well and took them to the ends of the ‘verse.”

“We will keep an eye out for them,” Katy nodded. “Anything else?”

“That will be it, just do your best to spread the word.” The screen went blank. “Well that is one down.”

“How many are we calling?” River had been silent during talk.

“Several, I got to wait a few more minutes before I send a wave to the Alliance. I still got to contact Monty, Byron, Jonas, and several others.”

“You talk,” River kept her focus ahead. “Spread the word in your way.” She was going to get them back to Beaumonde as fast as she could, so they could see Cyn’s band spread the word in their own way.

“Once we do get the word out just ‘bout everyone we can get some sleep,” he leaned back in his seat and placed his hands behind his head. “That is if you do feel a bit sleepy.”

“Not too sleepy,” River shrugged. The thoughts of James were drifting away, making room for the mission, the primary focus. “I can watch and give the same message back. If I do fall asleep it might be here.”

“Don’t want to sleep in your own bunk?”

“I am not sleepy now, but I may get tired by the end, too tired to walk back when I am comfortable.”

“That is why I am going to stay here, watch you if you nod off now and then and when I do I’ll send ya to bed.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be just fine.”

“Watching over me because of my age,” she knew why she stayed up in the front. It was just her and James in the back, now that her brother shares a bunk with Kaylee. She was partially afraid she would see James’s dreams, and the nightmares he endures now and then. There was also the curiosity if she might appear in his dreams, but she tried not to peek and the second she did appear she tuned the dreams out.

“I’m watching cause you are my crew and I’m the captain.”

“Just like a daddy,” River said before a signal for a new wave appeared.

-

Someone was tapping at Mal’s bunk door when they should be asleep along with the rest of the crew. Of course it could be urgent, and they may have not been able to reach a commlink to wake him, however if it were urgent then the knocks on the door would have been more like large bangs in a fast pace rather than the light tapping that was in a rhythm.

“Not now,” Mal grumbled into his pillow. He was trying to sleep. He had lost count of how many people he had contacted, some appeared to have believed him, some appeared to have been in shock and didn’t want to believe, and a few like the Alliance shook their heads completely.

The knocking had stopped and Mal closed his eyes, ready to allow himself to slip off into a state of bliss. They had crossed a few quadrants in record time, they might even return a day and a half earlier than it took for them to reach Setzer. The doc had checked the kid out, mentioned he just needed a bit more food. Zoë showed James how to update the information on Apollo’s paper screen to show that he is now a free man.

The knocking started again. It was the same pattern as before, starting slow, then speeding up, and then slowing down again.

Mal opened his eyes. “Somebody is due for a long yellin’,” he rolled out of bed. “You better have a good reason for waking me up.” He gradually climbed up the bottom rungs and pulled down the door and stared up. There was no one there. “This aint funny.” He climbed up and looked around. The other bunks were closed and were locked.

A small tapping echoed down the hall, coming from the direction of the kitchen. It had the same beat as knocking at the door.

“Hello?” Mal stepped towards the source of the sound. He had paused to see if the tapping was part of Morse code, and he did pick up a few letters, but they did not form any words, unless he was supposed to try to make words out of the letters that had been typed out. He shook his head. One should not boggle with Morse code.

The tapping came from inside the dining area, and stopped once Mal head reached the entrance, now he will finally get to the bottom of this mystery, berate who ever caused it and then return to bed and welcoming sleep.

What he had discovered in his ship’s galley was that last person he had expected to see rummaging around for a snack, for there in front of him, appearing in the same priestly clothing and keeping his normal cloud of gray hair woven in neat corn rows with the rest tied behind was Shepherd Book.

“Hello captain,” Book placed a small pot on the stove. “Did I wake you?”

Mal just stared at him, unmoving. He blinked twice, and each time the shepherd was still there, stirring in the contents from a bag. This could not be real.

“I know I didn’t say everything you liked to hear,” the shepherd didn’t turn around. “But I knew you would at least answer me.” He turned around. “Now stop standing there like a stuck pig.”

“I’m trying to stay out of the special hell,” Mal blurted out when he felt his mouth work. Of all the things he wanted to say, why did he say that?

“Good,” Book smiled. “That is good to hear. I am also glad to see that you have been trying. You didn’t toe the line in that aspect?”

Mal shook his head. “You are not real.”

“I am as real as you imagine me to be.”

Imagine, this was all in Mal’s imagination. “This is a dream?”

“Took you that long to figure it out,” Book shook his head.

“What are you doing in my dream?” Mal asked.

Book shrugged. “Why are you asking me? This your dream not mine.”

“I guess a part of my mind has sought some spiritual advice, and you are the one to provide it.”

“You have questions, well go on and ask.”

“I should be doing more,” Mal sat down at one of the chairs. “There is more for me to do than just sending out waves.”

“It is a good start,” Book continued to stir.

“If that communications tower hadn’t been torn down,” Mal chewed on his lower lip. “I could have Apollo make a holographic recording, feed it to the tower, allow the ‘verse to know another truth.”

“There is more than one way to get a signal across.”

“That girl thinks her music is going to be the key. She believes millions will hear her song, listen to her speak. It still won’t be enough. We won’t be able to find her little sis.”

“Music is more than just entertainment,” Book selected a few bowls. “It can be the source of communication when the languages are not the same, it can provide a background for those hard at study, lull a crying baby to sleep. It can wake one up on time. It had been used for protests to summon others to heal and provide, to woo a loved one, and give hope to the hopeless.”

“It wasn’t enough,” Mal stared at his hands. “It motivated them, along with my speeches. They would gather around, listen to me play.”

“It wasn’t just about the war, it was also before,” the older man spooned the dish he had cooked into the bowls. He set one in front of Mal before he sat down himself. “You never did tell me about Rusty Cooper.”

“He was one of my favorite ranch hands,” Mal smiled at the man who had hair the color of rust and could whistle with two fingers in his mouth. “He always did feed into my latest whim by giving me a book on the subject. We were on this boat, well it was a ship, but it floated on water. We were transporting some cattle across a lake.”

“Why not by air?” Book asked.

“Cause the last time the guy flying was drunk, some cattle got spooked and it was not a pretty sight when it landed, or at least my mother told me it wasn’t a pretty sight, boy was she pissed.”

“I can imagine so.”

Mal spooned some of the concoction into his mouth. It was rice pudding and it was delicious. “Anyway we were on this water faring ship. This was a huge lake, about the size of a bay, and I was ten and obsessed with pirates, the ones at sea in their tall ships, Blackbeard and others like him, the kind the commodore would hunt. Rusty convinced my mother to take me aboard. He told me about firefly ships and early in the evening when the sun was gone but the sky wasn’t completely dark, just indigo and there was a light in the sky.”

“Was it a firefly?”

“It sure was,” Mal felt his smile grow. “I asked Rusty if it was and he confirmed it.”

“This Rusty had another talent, didn’t he?”

“About an hour later, I came across Rusty strumming away at his guitar. I asked him if he could teach me how to play.”

“That wasn’t a passing obsession?”

Mal shook his head. “I played a lot. I wanted to form my own band and then Shadow stood up to the Alliance. I enlisted, I had hoped that the war would be quick, we would win and I can go back to playing.”

“And then Serenity Valley happened.”

Mal nodded. “Being a soldier did shape me, and losing changed everything.” He waited to hear Book answer him, give him some advice or reassurance, but all he heard was the droning sound of his alarm.

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