Title: Downstream

Author: Ana Sedai

Rating: PG

Character(s): Mal, River

Prompt: 016 - Current

Word Count: 615

A/N: Fourth for Joss100. (Should I keep numbering these?)

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The funny thing about currents, Mal remembered, was that you could never tell how strong they were just by lookin’ at ‘em. He’d made that mistake once, and only once, when he was a kid. He’d decided to try and swim across the river that cut through their ranch about a mile from the house, but he hadn’t tested the water first. It’d looked so peaceful. Who woulda guessed water that looked so still could move so fast? If the foreman hadn’t been inspecting fence posts nearby when ten-year-old Mal had started yellin’, he’d ‘a been swept downstream and drowned.

He’d gotten a tongue-lashing from his Ma and a stern lecture from the foreman. “Son, ya gotta look before ya leap. Ain’t no tellin’ what you might land in if’n you don’t.” Well, since then he’d still been terrible at the looking before part, but at least he’d always known that he was leaping.

Now, though, he was drowning again and he hadn’t even realized that he’d jumped until he was neck deep and sputtering. His dreams were being taken over by visions of wild hair and a small figure dancing between the stars. He would wake with the sound of music still echoing in his head. It’d gotten so he didn’t know whether to be afraid to sleep, or to look forward to it. A current was carryin’ him along with it, and he wasn’t sure where he was headed.

It wasn’t River’s fault. Since the galley, she hadn’t been stalkin’ him as much. He wondered if she’d finally found out what she wanted. He didn’t think so, though. Instead of her dissecting stare, she now looked at him with a bit of confusion, and at times, a little sadness. He didn’t ask why, and she didn’t seem too anxious to share. He didn’t like seein’ her like that, though. The girl’d had far too much of sorrow in her short life. The last thing he wanted was to caus