Chapter 3: Detour

Disclaimer: Joss is the king, and it’s good to be the king. And everything in the kingdom is his. Feel free to R/R. Thanks to Liu, Jorja, and others in the FFF.net chat who took time out to listen to my ideas regarding this and offer their criticism and suggestions/inspiration. As a warning, this is a filler chapter that I got stuck on, so my apologies in advance if it falls short of the previous two chapters.

“I wanna go home; cause when a lover aches, that’s when a lover breaks. I wanna go home.”- Smashing Pumpkins, Spaceboy

It was less a dream to River, and more like an actual experience. While out in the black, the entire crew had the benefit of some downtime. For River that meant sleeping in Jayne’s arms when the boredom got to be so overwhelming that no activity after lovemaking could possibly motivate them to get out of bed. Or stretching and spotting Jayne while he lifted weights, or memorizing Simon’s encyclopedia while flying Serenity. Or drawing and reading while flying the ship, or any number of things. It just so happens that on this particular afternoon, River was tangled in the sheets upon Jayne’s bed. Jayne kissed River’s forehead while she slept curled up over his chest. Her palm rested under her cheek, directly over the scar upon his chest where she had cut him on a day that seemed lifetimes away.

She was dreaming of something troubling, he could tell. He saw her brow furrow with some untold frustration, her lower lip stretch into a frown. His arms wrapped themselves about her bare waist, moved by some unknown drive to be tender toward her. He clung to her tightly, protectively. Inside her head were thoughts that had traveled thousands of miles just to be inside her. Jayne’s eyes shifted between River and the hatch opening to his bunk. River smelled smoke and burning and blood; all in her head. Jayne’s thoughts matched his alternating views; love that woman, lock that hatch. River whimpered in her sleep; she was feeling glass, rocks, flying and falling an