TITLE: The river in a lil albatross’ mind

AUTHOR: Yme

RATING: PG (at the moment)

PAIRING: Jayne/River Malcolm/Inara Zoe/Wash Simon/Kaylee

SUMMARY: Rivers point of view on things. Follows how river decides Jayne is the one for her and how she goes about getting him.

DISCLAIMER: Oh that I had a smidge of Joss Whedon’s genius. Sadly they are not mine. But I have a plan to seduce joss, be the other woman and get him to leave them to me in his will.

AUTHOR NOTE: Not Beta'd yet

I’m in the forest room, the one with the bad stick. The grid of the walkway is cold and I can feel it leaving little marks of the soft soles of my bare feet. It doesn’t hurt, its just sensation. It’s good to feel things outside my head, even better that it doesn’t hurt. It’s so quiet here. Safe. It helps.

I’ve gotten so quiet. You might think they forget I’m here, and for the most part, on days like today, when my head is quiet and I’m not being “crazy” I could walk right by and they wouldn’t see. Not me.

Simon thinks he always sees me, but he doesn’t. Not when he’s with his soft spot. That’s Kaylee, or his knives. When he’s with them he can pretend, pretty pretend that he’s there, not here, back where he should be, before me.

When he remembers, the guilt is so cold it stings; I can always feel it, his sharp guilt, like a thousand nettles. Worst guilt comes when he’s been with Kaylee, shiny warm Kaylee, makes the cold after so much worse.

Every one of them could miss me except HIM. It started as fear of me and what comes for me, then after Ariel it changed, not fear, just wary of me but fear of Captain Daddy. Now it’s something else. The wary changed but still wary and there’s a wonderin’. I feel him look at me times and the heat starts. I’ve felt that heat before but never really for me.

Like on that one planet, in that house, oh the feelings they burned and stung and cut real deep. Poor Inara. She doesn’t understand that he found a kindred spirit. Doesn’t see that really she’s the fi