This is a response to the Songfic Challenge. The story is inspired by two songs. Silence by Lizz Wright, which has always reminded me of Firefly, forms the basis for the fic and fulfills the challenge. But...what true browncoat could take up pen to write 'bout the 'verse without including the Firefly Theme Song (written by Joss Whedon)? It just crept in by its own self and not nary one of us could challenge it's right to be here, dong ma?
NOTE: Story occurs just days after the end of the Movie Serenity, so spoilers for the movie and some references to the TV series Firefly as well, nearly every episode in small ways. Watch them first if you want to get all the in-jokes.
DISCLAIMERS: This is a work of fiction based on the shiny 'verse created by Joss Whedon. Mutant Enemy, Universal and 20th Century Fox own the rights to the characters, theme songs and the shiny images used in the banners. I just want to keep 'em flyin' a while longer and entertain us here on the raggedy edge. Please don't sully their memory with any ugly accusations 'bout ownership.
Songs belong to them as wrote 'em: Lizz Wright and Joss Whedon
Banners edited down as was told, but twere 'riginally done by Shealyn88 (chapter 2) 'ceptin' them what I done my own self (story title and chapter 1 so far--shiny!). Thankee. Other pics are from screencaps.
FYI: Big Damn Heroes from left: Jayne Cobb, Kaylee Frye, Shepherd Book, Simon Tam, Inara Serra, Malcolm Reynolds, Zoe Washburne, Hoban "Wash" Washburne, River Tam.
Zoe's waking nightmare threatens the warrior's calm and resilience.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Silence by Lizz Wright
http://www.last.fm/music/Lizz+Wright/_/Silence (listen for free here)
Have you heard the silent night
The earth is always singing
Praises of the morning sun
Even before morning
And the whole world is singing of
It's beauty all day long
And even the quiet dark
That silence is a song
Weep not for the day of gray
For the heavens are not weeping
THE Roses are still red and gay
They are even blooming
And the whole world is singing of
It's beauty all day long
And even the quiet dark
That silence is a song
That silence is a song
1
She strained against the belt that kept her from ricocheting around the cockpit while the wild descent tossed the floundering ship. Serenity spun and jerked leaving her dizzy and breathless. Her adrenalin pumped, warrior senses sharp, alert but this was pilot's work, she couldn't play a part in it. And all the while her eyes never left him. She watched him as he struggled to find some way to control the ship and succeeded. Serenity plummeted through the increasingly dense atmosphere; guiding the ship through the storm of attackers, obstacles, debris. Her mind strained to support him, give him the strength, presence, will he needed to guide them, land them, get them planet-side. She trembled with his effort.
The ground came up fast as Wash attempted to "glide her in". They bounced into the hangar, sheering off whole sections of the ship--her engines, wings. Serenity came to a desperate stop. Gasping, Zoe watched wide-eyed with admiration as her husband, realizing he had brought them through once again, relaxed visibly and whispered to himself, "I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I..."
Suddenly, Wash was harpooned by the Reaver scum. The thick metal spear pierced him in the chest, pinning him to the pilot's seat. Zoe was up and moving, was with him instantly, but he was already gone. "Wash...baby? Baby, no. Baby c'mon, you gotta go. Baby, c'mon. we gotta move, Baby...please...you gotta move."
Zoe stood between River and the empty seat surrounded by tacky plastic dinosaurs gazing out at the black. The seat where her husband belonged, but he was gone. The whole scene played in her head on continuous loop, it punctuated her every waking hour with pain. It was now the constant backdrop of her existence.
Her full lips, cocoa mauve and dry -- no longer gleaming red, coated with the luscious gloss Wash loved to see on them, moved inaudibly at first, then a tuneless song trickled from them and whispered out into the cockpit.
Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand ...
It was an anthem of rebellion, an anthem of the Independents, but she could not continue. What good was a song of freedom hard won and the scrappy independence gleaned from job to job -- do the job, get paid, keep flyin'? Sure. She had done her job, would do her job. But, the 'verse had taken her love and the Alliance had taken the land long ago, and she didn't feel free. She was shattered; chained to that moment in time, the never ending loop of memory that left her here, empty and still breathing. One of the walking dead.
Strong rough hands touched her shoulders besides the worn brown leather vest she wore on jobs. Lightly at first, like a kiss, then firmly, like a friend. A voice sang back for her ears alone:
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me....
"No. Not so long as Serenity's holdin' fair."
The hands slid down her arms, along the sleeves of her drab olive-brown shirt, feeling the rock-hard biceps clench, nerves twitching.
"And you?"
"Not so much, sir"
Zoe turned slowly to face her captain, her war buddy, her best living friend, Malcolm Reynolds, and as she turned, the stone-cold * collapsed, whispering into his chest,
"He ain't, never comin'."
Mal looked through the wild curls and over his shoulder towards River and thought, . He didn't know if she was listening or not, but the look in her eyes let him know she understood.
Mal attempted to lace his arm under Zoe's, set to support her like an injured soldier, but she pressed back away from him."I ain't got no need for you to carry me jus' yet."
They walked together down through the front passageway back to the mustard-yellow galley, the reflection from the walls played with the sickly shades of the protein rations they normally choked back for sustenance. The galley brought back memories of the Shepherd, who had also died for the secret River had held, the secret of Miranda and the horror the Alliance had created there all in an attempt to engineer a better world. They had done the job and broadcast that truth across the 'verse, and it was a job worth dying for. And yet....
They stood in front of the window in the galley, looking out into the black."We're survivors, Zoe. We survived Serenity Valley. We survived the war. We survived the Alliance's gorram operative." He spat out the bitter last bit, remembering the hard, broken man for his crimes and not the guilty kindness that had gotten them back flying. He turned to look at Zoe. She faced the window, but it was clear she was only seeing her pain. She was so beautiful to him in that moment. He had known her since they were kids, two browncoats who just couldn't seem to be killed in the war that took so many. She had always been a warrior--known her for her calm, cold precision and her absolute allegiance to her captain. She probably knew him better than anyone else. But this fragile, vulnerable woman by his side -- his heart ached for her now. He didn't know what he could do or say to soothe her, to bring her back.
Zoe remained silent at his side. She turned her beautiful, large almond-shaped eyes to his uncharacteristically compassionate blues, and he could see how dark and sunken they had become with her grief. She looked haunted. Zoe searched his face and seemed to come to a decision.
"Come a time, Cap'n, when you maybe realize survivin' wa'n't truly what you was aimin' toward."
Mal waited a beat -- he didn't know what to say to her, he was scared to hear what she would say next.
"Where're you aimin' t' go, Zoe?"
Zoe turned her face back toward the emptiness. "I don't rightly know, sir." Her fluid voice caught, but the rest tumbled out before she could stop herself. "Don't reckon I can live without him."
Mal turned to look back out into the emptiness of the 'verse. For him, the silence of the vacuum was palpable. The black held the peace he sought, held all his answers. Held him away from ground, away from the Alliance and the failure of the Independence war.
"Long as we can keep flying, we got reason to keep livin'.'' Mal's heart seemed to expand as if it would burst. He couldn't imagine a world without Zoe. And yet, she was living that nightmare -- caught in a world without Wash.
"And if she don't fly true?" Zoe turned and walked back through the galley to the complicated array of spans that traversed down into the cargo hold.
Mal let her go. A ship this size was a small place, even for the seven of them that remained. An unspoken rule was that if someone walked away from you, you let them go. It was a signal that they were leaving when there was really no way you could get away from anyone on the ship. Zoe needed her space, but the thought of her alone chilled him.
--*--
Zoe found herself overlooking the cargo hold, perched on the span that led between the two shuttles. She sank down and sat on the span, staring inward. , she thought to herself.
She let the little noises and creaks of Serenity leak away from her awareness and entered into the black. It seemed as though the ship had gone transparent and she could sense the vacuum of space all around her. She drank in the silence and it filled her -- seeping in from the skin. The silence turned her thoughts to Earth-that-was.
Earth-that-was is always calling to us, she sings in the silence of the black, reminding us we are her children, the children who stripped her naked to the bone; raped her, taking everything precious from within her, then left her behind. Now the silence that was in her core, echoed through the void in all its vastness. That silence was the surest way to recollect her.
We made new homes on new planets, but nary one of them offered what Earth-that-was had gifted. She could not be re-created. What had been created instead was a new kind of people who were made exactly in the image of what was done to the Earth. The Reavers -- they were the legacy of our destruction and exile. They raped, pillaged and cannibalized Alliance space the way we had raped, pillaged and cannibalized earth.
"Crazy bastards." Zoe loosed the words with a harsh whisper.
Earth was long dead before she had been born, but Zoe could feel her true home in the silence. This was the intimacy she shared with Mal, that had at one time threatened her husband, until he learned what it was to go through nearly to death with a person and come out the other side. From that moment, there was an understanding among the three that allowed Wash and Zoe to truly become one soul in two bodies. The Reavers had taken Wash from her, but they were a creation of the Alliance. Another reason to have won the gorram war, but they had lost.
She stood silent as a cat and made her way back towards the crew quarters and descended to their bunk to lie among her memories and be with her dead husband.
Chines phrases from the Firefly pinyinary
? = understand?
* = *ass-kickin' killer