Title: Flesh to Clay

Author: hisgoodgirl

Disclaimer: All belong to Joss. I got nada.

Rating: PG-15, for dark content

Setting: Between War Stories and Trash

Paring: Pre-Jaylee

Words: 1890

Summary: The crew deals with the aftermath of a Reaver attack and Jayne struggles with survivor guilt. Kaylee POV.

A/N: Written after I listened to a soldier on leave from Iraq share his struggle with his own memories and emotions.

X-posted from my LiveJournal

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Flesh to Clay

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Most anybody growin’ up on the Rim in recent times has heard tell of the Reavers. If you’re lucky, somebody tells you stories about ‘em to scare the be-jeebus outta you, stories about how they rape and torture and eat folk, like monsters outta some nightmare.

An’ if you’re not so lucky? Well, you get to learn about ‘em up close and personal.

We’ve had our share of close calls with ‘em, like on Whitefall, but I was still dopey enough from all the meds Simon pumped into me that I didn’t realize at the time what we came near to bumbling into. It took landing at the settlement of Payton on Dib’s Moon for me to get my head around just how horrific them creatures are.

The Cap’n had lined up a straight-up transport job on Three Hills, moving grain and crates of housekeeping supplies and freeze-dried foodstuffs that the owner of the drygoods store in Payton had ordered. Easy-peasy li’l job, just a hop ‘round the Chambers Quadrant.

About twelve hours out, the Cap’n had Wash wave the dockmaster to let ‘em know we were in-bound but he didn’t get no response. Nothin’ but static. ‘Course, there’s always reasonable explanations why the signal’s down – like a lightening storm hittin’ the transmitter or some kind of power blackout. Cap told Wash to keep on trying to make the connection and our ETA was for 0800 the next mornin’.

River was more fretsome than usual at supper an’ kept twisting her