Title: Bleeding

Author: Obsidiana Girl

SPOILERS for the BDM

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Of course they aren’t mine! But I am using them with love and without monetary gain.

Summary: What does River see when Mal walks away from the others on Haven?

He is bleeding. I can see the deep, red arterial river pouring from his torn and ravaged soul. I see his misery as it taunts him and pulls another piece from his already tattered being and tramples it in the dust.

Insane! Cold! Angry! Empty! Pitiless! Tactless! Hard! Emotionless!

Just words that drift through the emptiness between the others and him, but they can’t see. Don’t understand and their eyes condemn him, mark him as callous and unfeeling.

I see the wounds. His heart torn and bleeding with loss, grief and guilt, but he doesn’t blame me. He can see through the shallow attempts of the true executioner to cast blame on me, on him, but we are both just pawns in this morbid chess game laid out before us and he feels responsible just the same.

I hear the rough determination in his voice to keep the others alive, hear the suppressed anger and grit that it takes to make such outwardly heartless decisions, but I can also hear the way his heart weeps at the loss of the Shepherd and the senseless death of any he called safe haven.

I can feel his pain as he steadies himself for the duty ahead, resolute in his resolve to use any and all available means to accomplish his task. He is hard and unyielding in his desire to confound the men who would kill innocence to hide their sinfulness.

God’s balls! A joke! Think! Accusations all! Each taking little pieces from his soul and the blood runs red from each cutting wound.

Ten paces and he doesn’t show any mercy to the one who had wrought so much destruction, only swift justice and a sure end, that is what that man is dealt.

He threatens violence to any who might contradict him and offers absolution to those unable to follow, and his heart bleeds at the cutting glances and frightened eyes unable to me