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jedibuttercupT; B:tVS/Firefly 'verse; Five POVs; 2500 words. Next part of Ancient Slayers. For ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
twistedshorts.
Buffy watched as her son's crew digested, debated, decided, and kicked themselves into motion, and swallowed through another deep swell of emotion. Mal had Scoobies.
Title: Creatures of Extraordinary Grace
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: T/PG-13
Spoilers: Post-series for B:tVS; post-Serenity (2005)
Notes: Five POVs on the road to the next Plot in the Ancient Slayers 'verse. Also takes into account the events of Damage Done. That's it for Buffy Crossover Month this year!
Buffy watched as her son's crew digested, debated, decided, and kicked themselves into motion, and swallowed through another deep swell of emotion. Mal had Scoobies. 2500 words.
Star Pupil
+
River had dreamed of her wài pó since she was a little girl. When she was younger, she'd mostly dreamed of her dancing: a blonde teenager in brightly colored outfits leaping with pompoms in her hands, twisting to upbeat music in a crowd of her friends, and spinning and gliding across a sheet of ice balanced on sharp blades. Bodies in motion: applied physics, rotational symmetries, three-dimensional geometries sketched by the human form. When the time had come for River to choose her physical education track, there hadn't even been a question.
But that track had led her to the Academy; and at the Academy, her dreams had darkened along with her teachers' intentions. The figure in them began to dance with a different purpose: not for pleasure, but for survival, bound to fight a war she'd never volunteered for. Other girls sometimes appeared, too: young women of all shapes and sizes, of all colors and classes, slaying and being slain by an endless series of monsters. But always, through era after era, the blonde fought on-- she and her dark-haired sister. Serving the Watchers' cause.
Old men covered in blood; it never touched them, but they're drowning in it. River might have been far from home, but she was still following in her grandmother's footsteps.
The dreams didn't change back after Simon saved her; after he followed the breadcrumb trail of her letters and came to the rescue of the mèi mei he'd been missing. She wasn't exactly that little sister anymore, though, and taking her away from the Hands that would have wielded her didn't unforge the weapon she had the Potential to become. After all, it hadn't all been the scientist's meddling; they'd tried to shape her, but she'd always been the one girl in all the worlds.
In a battle that should never have been fought on a moon that circled no world, the question had come to her: are you ready to be strong? My turn, she'd replied, and picked up axe and sword.
She hadn't been sure she wasn't still dreaming when Mal's aunt first walked onto the scene. Not at Wash and Book's funeral; in the Shepherd's thoughts after a side meeting before he left the crew. Before Miranda, but after Ariel, in those months when her thoughts had finally started to become her own again but hadn't fully settled. He'd looked at her and thought violence begets violence, and that knowledge had still been in his eyes when he'd looked at River. When Faith showed up in person to mourn him, the echo of five centuries of death trailing in her wake, River had been almost too choked by ghosts to speak.
But the third time she came-- this time, not alone--
River thundered up the stairs to the galley and threw herself into Buffy Summers' arms.
They weren't through the storm yet. But Mal-- Uncle Mal-- had been right; now that her grandmother was here, they'd pass through it soon enough.
+
Man of Honor
+
I could have left her there, Mal remembered, horrified, as he watched his mother comfort his-- what even was the word for their relation? Great-niece? The time bomb; the albatross; the wounded young woman he'd been unable to fully cut loose from the start, despite all the trouble she'd brought to his ship. River had nearly died half a hundred times since her brother brought her aboard, even before the Operative had started hunting them. Knowing she was family didn't so much change things as give them more resonance; added a weight of destiny to their history that he'd thought left far behind him with the faith of his childhood.
But that had been before a dying preacher clapped bloody hands to his face and told him to believe; before River stared into his eyes with corpses strewn around her feet, waiting for his signal to fight on; before his aunt and mother walked back into his life years after their funeral. Whatever happened next, he'd already known there'd be no more slipping about on the raggedy edge. But he'd surely thought they'd have a little more time before the next fight caught up to them.
Inara's hand squeezed his shoulder; he turned his head, not even sure what to say. After all the ups and downs, after cutting each other to the bone on their own mis-expectations before finally reaching an understanding, he'd been hoping for a dram of peace while they worked out the next steps to their dance; this surely didn't qualify.
"Don't give me that look," she said firmly, dark eyes full of sympathy. Months ago, he might have assumed she was trying to manage him, but paradoxically, coming to the grips with the fact that River was also-- but not just-- a weapon had settled something in the back of his mind regarding Inara. She was the woman he loved; and also-- but not just-- a Companion. "I'm not leaving."
"You sure?" Mal had to ask. "If Ma's here after all this time-- if it's aught to do with River--"
"An Operative found me once already," she replied, giving him a fondly chiding look. "Do you really think I'll be safer out of your presence?"
She did have a point there. He pressed a thankful kiss to her cheek, then stood, meeting Zoë's gaze. His second nodded; that settled, he strode around the table to where Simon stood with his sister, both staring at the woman who'd asked them to call her Buffy.
"So. Speaking of regrets," he prodded. "You were gonna tell us why you're really here."
His mother looked up, eyes sparking with determination. "Well, I was planning to hang around for the Alliance's next attack. But if River says they haven't stopped... well, it's been a while since I blew up a school."
Somebody has to speak for these people, he remembered himself saying.
"All right then," Mal decided, the corner of his mouth curling. "I guess we're gonna misbehave. Again."
+
The Brigand
+
Jayne swore under his breath again as he stooped to scoop up the shards of his glass. "Āiyā. Wǒmen wánle."
He heard another chair push out; then Fay was kneeling next to him, a rueful smile on her face as she offered a towel. "Hey. Surely it's not that bad."
He turned and dumped the glass in the trash, then took the towel from her and began to mop up the spilled liquor. He knew she wasn't just talking about the glass; then again, she didn't know about what he'd tried to do to Simon and River, neither. He had a feeling that if Mal had known they were family after Ariel, he really would have thrown Jayne out the airlock, and he didn't want to hear that same sharp disappointed tone in Mal's aunt's voice-- never. He'd been sorta looking forward to having Fay around, after Mal's Ma had teased about her taking a shine to him.
"You weren't here for the last round of thrilling heroics," he said, dryly. "Captain for damn sure ain't talking me out of taking grenades along this time."
Fay's smile widened, an appreciative curve to her mouth that made him swallow. "Man after my own heart. And hey; I'll be there this time. Me and Bea both. Doesn't that count for anything?"
"Because adding two more tiny killer women to the party's gonna make things go more smooth?" he countered skeptically. "You forget, you've told me some of your stories."
She'd maybe left out a few details-- like exactly when they happened, given the generation gap Mal's Ma was throwing around over there; Jayne was pretty sure he didn't want to know the details of how-- but he'd got a pretty good sense for how she felt about a fight. Flip side of his coin, he'd thought then; but three of 'em together? Definitely a 'front toward enemy' situation.
The smile turned into an outright chuckle; then she grabbed Jayne's hand and tugged him to his feet in one easy pull. "Think about it this way; you get to be in the next one with me."
The display of strength and sultry tone of voice had him carefully thinking about anything but his bunk; this definitely weren't the time, but he was only human.
"All right, then," he heard Mal say; "I guess we're gonna misbehave. Again."
"But we'll have an actual plan this time, right?" Jayne frowned. "Somethin' a little more than just 'throw our enemies at each other and hope we slip through'? Do we even know where that Academy is?"
Half the crew turned to look at Simon; but the boy just shook his head. "They flew me there to get her; I was never in on the planning."
"One person we know knows," River spoke up, wiping at her face as she turned to Mal.
"Now who might-- no. Not him," Mal blurted.
River nodded, devastating as a meteor shower. "The Operative."
Cào. Well, this was gonna be fun.
+
Flying True
+
Zoë had seen some of Mal's last encounter with the Operative. Heard the rest later, part sounding board and part apology; much as he hated the man, he had a deep well of empathy for the vulnerable and broken. Zoë couldn't blame him for that. The Operative, though--
"You wanna ask him for help? He killed our friends," Kaylee blurted, dismayed, echoing her objections. "He hurt the ship. He hunted River!"
Simon released his sister to wrap a supportive arm around their mechanic's shoulders. "Whatever he may have done afterward to make up for his actions-- Kaylee's right. Why would he help us with anything else? And how could we possibly trust him?"
Mal sighed, expression grim. "I may've suggested he look up Southdown Abbey. Told him he still felt there was nothing left in a year's time, I'd make an appointment. Waved there once, a week after, to ask whether they wanted Book's journals; was told he'd arrived. The man might be willin' to make amends. But if I go, he'll be anticipatin' a somewhat different question."
"Then I'll go," Zoë said, surprising even herself with the firmness of her reply.
"What-- Zoë," Mal objected. "Surely that's not necessary," Inara sputtered beside him. The others echoed them both, every one of their startled gazes full of concern for the widow. Except for Mal's mother and sister-- both watchful, waiting for her reasons.
"You were his antagonist, River his prey; the rest of us were secondary if he thought of us at all. If we're to ask him to make amends, might be helpful to make clear just how far he's got to go." The Parliament's man might not have personally speared her husband or cut down Book, but he'd surely set those wheels in motion.
"You might be surprised," Faith spoke up. "You wouldn't've known, but Southdown Abbey's a Watcher cover. Men with books and spy tech who support women like Buffy and I-- and now River. Your Shepherd joined 'em after working for the Parliament's shadow version of us, the program that makes Operatives. Probably River's school, too. If he went there... trust me, the truth's been made crystal clear to him."
"All the more reason to confront him," Zoë insisted. "Though if you know the place, I might could use some accompaniment." She locked gazes to Buffy as she spoke; there was still the matter of her reliability to settle after letting her own son think she was dead for a decade, after all, and a mission for two would help make their positions clear as well.
Buffy's expression turned thoughtful, then decisive. "And give him a nudge, if that gǒushǐduī decides he'd rather not help us find the Academy," she said. "I like it. Mal?"
Mal looked between them, expression trepidatious, then sighed and threw up his hands. "Hell, I'm just the captain here. We goin', go get your things; I'll file us a flight plan."
Zoë knew there was a reason she followed that man.
+
Big Happy Family
+
Buffy watched as her son's crew digested, debated, decided, and kicked themselves into motion, and swallowed through another deep swell of emotion. Mal had Scoobies. Her baby boy, who'd grown up wanting to be a teacher until the war called him, had chosen the fight all on his own and gathered his own Scoobies.
She was so proud of him she could burst. Even though she knew she had no right. His second was right to glare at her; she'd thought she was doing the right thing protecting him with her absence, but the sins of her legacy had followed and found him all the same. And he'd found and saved her lost great-grandchildren; the ones she hadn't even known were missing.
At least one of the Powers from Earth that Was had followed humanity to space; the reconstituted Watchers-- poured from the colony ships like a packet of seeds and fully reestablished within the first decade-- had been sure of that much. Buffy had often thought it must have been one of the death gods, since humans still lived and died among the stars and they weren't the types to care about who governed whom or how. Whichever it was certainly hadn't intervened when the Watchers had splintered into factions, taking the Slayers to ground on the outer worlds and leaving the government-allied survivors to try to replace them. Even so, Buffy briefly turned her face toward the skylight, whispering thanks under her breath for the first time in centuries.
Sure, maybe he was now a pawn of the greater war just like she was-- just like River was-- but he'd lived, defeated his first Big Bad with the help of his friends, and didn't even hold her long absence too much against her.
Faith already had her bag, but Buffy had left hers in a room near the Maidenhead, not sure whether Mal would give her the chance to explain; she ducked out while he was on the bridge and jogged back, picking up the few things she'd rather not leave behind. Clothes, of course. A few of her favorite weapons. A family tree journal thirty years out of date. And a capture full of old Earth memories, meticulously transferred with each new digital media advancement: the last remnant of her sister, her mortal friends, and all those left behind to retreat to an enclave when Earth had been overrun by demons. With any luck, Spike and Illyria held out there still-- but barring one of them following her here, they'd probably never know.
She carried it all back to Serenity, carefully ignoring her son's relief that she hadn't disappeared again, then took a deep breath and handed him the capture, cued up to Dawn's face-- so like his.
"I should have showed you years ago," she said. "It hurt too much. But you deserve to know."
Then she settled in to tell Mal all about her Scoobies, something in her healing with every chuckle and wondering smile.
(x-posted in five parts ontwistedshorts and on AO3)
twistedshorts.Buffy watched as her son's crew digested, debated, decided, and kicked themselves into motion, and swallowed through another deep swell of emotion. Mal had Scoobies.
Title: Creatures of Extraordinary Grace
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not.
Rating: T/PG-13
Spoilers: Post-series for B:tVS; post-Serenity (2005)
Notes: Five POVs on the road to the next Plot in the Ancient Slayers 'verse. Also takes into account the events of Damage Done. That's it for Buffy Crossover Month this year!
Buffy watched as her son's crew digested, debated, decided, and kicked themselves into motion, and swallowed through another deep swell of emotion. Mal had Scoobies. 2500 words.
Star Pupil
+
River had dreamed of her wài pó since she was a little girl. When she was younger, she'd mostly dreamed of her dancing: a blonde teenager in brightly colored outfits leaping with pompoms in her hands, twisting to upbeat music in a crowd of her friends, and spinning and gliding across a sheet of ice balanced on sharp blades. Bodies in motion: applied physics, rotational symmetries, three-dimensional geometries sketched by the human form. When the time had come for River to choose her physical education track, there hadn't even been a question.
But that track had led her to the Academy; and at the Academy, her dreams had darkened along with her teachers' intentions. The figure in them began to dance with a different purpose: not for pleasure, but for survival, bound to fight a war she'd never volunteered for. Other girls sometimes appeared, too: young women of all shapes and sizes, of all colors and classes, slaying and being slain by an endless series of monsters. But always, through era after era, the blonde fought on-- she and her dark-haired sister. Serving the Watchers' cause.
Old men covered in blood; it never touched them, but they're drowning in it. River might have been far from home, but she was still following in her grandmother's footsteps.
The dreams didn't change back after Simon saved her; after he followed the breadcrumb trail of her letters and came to the rescue of the mèi mei he'd been missing. She wasn't exactly that little sister anymore, though, and taking her away from the Hands that would have wielded her didn't unforge the weapon she had the Potential to become. After all, it hadn't all been the scientist's meddling; they'd tried to shape her, but she'd always been the one girl in all the worlds.
In a battle that should never have been fought on a moon that circled no world, the question had come to her: are you ready to be strong? My turn, she'd replied, and picked up axe and sword.
She hadn't been sure she wasn't still dreaming when Mal's aunt first walked onto the scene. Not at Wash and Book's funeral; in the Shepherd's thoughts after a side meeting before he left the crew. Before Miranda, but after Ariel, in those months when her thoughts had finally started to become her own again but hadn't fully settled. He'd looked at her and thought violence begets violence, and that knowledge had still been in his eyes when he'd looked at River. When Faith showed up in person to mourn him, the echo of five centuries of death trailing in her wake, River had been almost too choked by ghosts to speak.
But the third time she came-- this time, not alone--
River thundered up the stairs to the galley and threw herself into Buffy Summers' arms.
They weren't through the storm yet. But Mal-- Uncle Mal-- had been right; now that her grandmother was here, they'd pass through it soon enough.
+
Man of Honor
+
I could have left her there, Mal remembered, horrified, as he watched his mother comfort his-- what even was the word for their relation? Great-niece? The time bomb; the albatross; the wounded young woman he'd been unable to fully cut loose from the start, despite all the trouble she'd brought to his ship. River had nearly died half a hundred times since her brother brought her aboard, even before the Operative had started hunting them. Knowing she was family didn't so much change things as give them more resonance; added a weight of destiny to their history that he'd thought left far behind him with the faith of his childhood.
But that had been before a dying preacher clapped bloody hands to his face and told him to believe; before River stared into his eyes with corpses strewn around her feet, waiting for his signal to fight on; before his aunt and mother walked back into his life years after their funeral. Whatever happened next, he'd already known there'd be no more slipping about on the raggedy edge. But he'd surely thought they'd have a little more time before the next fight caught up to them.
Inara's hand squeezed his shoulder; he turned his head, not even sure what to say. After all the ups and downs, after cutting each other to the bone on their own mis-expectations before finally reaching an understanding, he'd been hoping for a dram of peace while they worked out the next steps to their dance; this surely didn't qualify.
"Don't give me that look," she said firmly, dark eyes full of sympathy. Months ago, he might have assumed she was trying to manage him, but paradoxically, coming to the grips with the fact that River was also-- but not just-- a weapon had settled something in the back of his mind regarding Inara. She was the woman he loved; and also-- but not just-- a Companion. "I'm not leaving."
"You sure?" Mal had to ask. "If Ma's here after all this time-- if it's aught to do with River--"
"An Operative found me once already," she replied, giving him a fondly chiding look. "Do you really think I'll be safer out of your presence?"
She did have a point there. He pressed a thankful kiss to her cheek, then stood, meeting Zoë's gaze. His second nodded; that settled, he strode around the table to where Simon stood with his sister, both staring at the woman who'd asked them to call her Buffy.
"So. Speaking of regrets," he prodded. "You were gonna tell us why you're really here."
His mother looked up, eyes sparking with determination. "Well, I was planning to hang around for the Alliance's next attack. But if River says they haven't stopped... well, it's been a while since I blew up a school."
Somebody has to speak for these people, he remembered himself saying.
"All right then," Mal decided, the corner of his mouth curling. "I guess we're gonna misbehave. Again."
+
The Brigand
+
Jayne swore under his breath again as he stooped to scoop up the shards of his glass. "Āiyā. Wǒmen wánle."
He heard another chair push out; then Fay was kneeling next to him, a rueful smile on her face as she offered a towel. "Hey. Surely it's not that bad."
He turned and dumped the glass in the trash, then took the towel from her and began to mop up the spilled liquor. He knew she wasn't just talking about the glass; then again, she didn't know about what he'd tried to do to Simon and River, neither. He had a feeling that if Mal had known they were family after Ariel, he really would have thrown Jayne out the airlock, and he didn't want to hear that same sharp disappointed tone in Mal's aunt's voice-- never. He'd been sorta looking forward to having Fay around, after Mal's Ma had teased about her taking a shine to him.
"You weren't here for the last round of thrilling heroics," he said, dryly. "Captain for damn sure ain't talking me out of taking grenades along this time."
Fay's smile widened, an appreciative curve to her mouth that made him swallow. "Man after my own heart. And hey; I'll be there this time. Me and Bea both. Doesn't that count for anything?"
"Because adding two more tiny killer women to the party's gonna make things go more smooth?" he countered skeptically. "You forget, you've told me some of your stories."
She'd maybe left out a few details-- like exactly when they happened, given the generation gap Mal's Ma was throwing around over there; Jayne was pretty sure he didn't want to know the details of how-- but he'd got a pretty good sense for how she felt about a fight. Flip side of his coin, he'd thought then; but three of 'em together? Definitely a 'front toward enemy' situation.
The smile turned into an outright chuckle; then she grabbed Jayne's hand and tugged him to his feet in one easy pull. "Think about it this way; you get to be in the next one with me."
The display of strength and sultry tone of voice had him carefully thinking about anything but his bunk; this definitely weren't the time, but he was only human.
"All right, then," he heard Mal say; "I guess we're gonna misbehave. Again."
"But we'll have an actual plan this time, right?" Jayne frowned. "Somethin' a little more than just 'throw our enemies at each other and hope we slip through'? Do we even know where that Academy is?"
Half the crew turned to look at Simon; but the boy just shook his head. "They flew me there to get her; I was never in on the planning."
"One person we know knows," River spoke up, wiping at her face as she turned to Mal.
"Now who might-- no. Not him," Mal blurted.
River nodded, devastating as a meteor shower. "The Operative."
Cào. Well, this was gonna be fun.
+
Flying True
+
Zoë had seen some of Mal's last encounter with the Operative. Heard the rest later, part sounding board and part apology; much as he hated the man, he had a deep well of empathy for the vulnerable and broken. Zoë couldn't blame him for that. The Operative, though--
"You wanna ask him for help? He killed our friends," Kaylee blurted, dismayed, echoing her objections. "He hurt the ship. He hunted River!"
Simon released his sister to wrap a supportive arm around their mechanic's shoulders. "Whatever he may have done afterward to make up for his actions-- Kaylee's right. Why would he help us with anything else? And how could we possibly trust him?"
Mal sighed, expression grim. "I may've suggested he look up Southdown Abbey. Told him he still felt there was nothing left in a year's time, I'd make an appointment. Waved there once, a week after, to ask whether they wanted Book's journals; was told he'd arrived. The man might be willin' to make amends. But if I go, he'll be anticipatin' a somewhat different question."
"Then I'll go," Zoë said, surprising even herself with the firmness of her reply.
"What-- Zoë," Mal objected. "Surely that's not necessary," Inara sputtered beside him. The others echoed them both, every one of their startled gazes full of concern for the widow. Except for Mal's mother and sister-- both watchful, waiting for her reasons.
"You were his antagonist, River his prey; the rest of us were secondary if he thought of us at all. If we're to ask him to make amends, might be helpful to make clear just how far he's got to go." The Parliament's man might not have personally speared her husband or cut down Book, but he'd surely set those wheels in motion.
"You might be surprised," Faith spoke up. "You wouldn't've known, but Southdown Abbey's a Watcher cover. Men with books and spy tech who support women like Buffy and I-- and now River. Your Shepherd joined 'em after working for the Parliament's shadow version of us, the program that makes Operatives. Probably River's school, too. If he went there... trust me, the truth's been made crystal clear to him."
"All the more reason to confront him," Zoë insisted. "Though if you know the place, I might could use some accompaniment." She locked gazes to Buffy as she spoke; there was still the matter of her reliability to settle after letting her own son think she was dead for a decade, after all, and a mission for two would help make their positions clear as well.
Buffy's expression turned thoughtful, then decisive. "And give him a nudge, if that gǒushǐduī decides he'd rather not help us find the Academy," she said. "I like it. Mal?"
Mal looked between them, expression trepidatious, then sighed and threw up his hands. "Hell, I'm just the captain here. We goin', go get your things; I'll file us a flight plan."
Zoë knew there was a reason she followed that man.
+
Big Happy Family
+
Buffy watched as her son's crew digested, debated, decided, and kicked themselves into motion, and swallowed through another deep swell of emotion. Mal had Scoobies. Her baby boy, who'd grown up wanting to be a teacher until the war called him, had chosen the fight all on his own and gathered his own Scoobies.
She was so proud of him she could burst. Even though she knew she had no right. His second was right to glare at her; she'd thought she was doing the right thing protecting him with her absence, but the sins of her legacy had followed and found him all the same. And he'd found and saved her lost great-grandchildren; the ones she hadn't even known were missing.
At least one of the Powers from Earth that Was had followed humanity to space; the reconstituted Watchers-- poured from the colony ships like a packet of seeds and fully reestablished within the first decade-- had been sure of that much. Buffy had often thought it must have been one of the death gods, since humans still lived and died among the stars and they weren't the types to care about who governed whom or how. Whichever it was certainly hadn't intervened when the Watchers had splintered into factions, taking the Slayers to ground on the outer worlds and leaving the government-allied survivors to try to replace them. Even so, Buffy briefly turned her face toward the skylight, whispering thanks under her breath for the first time in centuries.
Sure, maybe he was now a pawn of the greater war just like she was-- just like River was-- but he'd lived, defeated his first Big Bad with the help of his friends, and didn't even hold her long absence too much against her.
Faith already had her bag, but Buffy had left hers in a room near the Maidenhead, not sure whether Mal would give her the chance to explain; she ducked out while he was on the bridge and jogged back, picking up the few things she'd rather not leave behind. Clothes, of course. A few of her favorite weapons. A family tree journal thirty years out of date. And a capture full of old Earth memories, meticulously transferred with each new digital media advancement: the last remnant of her sister, her mortal friends, and all those left behind to retreat to an enclave when Earth had been overrun by demons. With any luck, Spike and Illyria held out there still-- but barring one of them following her here, they'd probably never know.
She carried it all back to Serenity, carefully ignoring her son's relief that she hadn't disappeared again, then took a deep breath and handed him the capture, cued up to Dawn's face-- so like his.
"I should have showed you years ago," she said. "It hurt too much. But you deserve to know."
Then she settled in to tell Mal all about her Scoobies, something in her healing with every chuckle and wondering smile.
(x-posted in five parts on
twistedshorts and on AO3)
