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[FIC] Composition - Firefly - Ensemble
Well, when I said that I was getting in to Firefly, I didn't really want that to mean that the VERY NEXT DAY I'd be struck with a plot bunny and be forced to write the damn thing down.

*cries*

My arm is bloody sore since I write stuff out by hand first and then type it up, effectively double-handling everything. And I wouldn't usually worry about getting it out so fast except I'm busy all day tomorrow (today), I have to leave the house at 7:30am and I'll get back just before 10pm. But I'll stop now, I'm making myself emo.

Title: Composition
Fandom: Firefly/Serenity (with spoilers for the BDM)
Pairing: Nothing in-your-face, but I'm a Mal/River shipper and I feel there are...tones
Word count: 4782
Summary: When River gets an idea, she runs with it.



Mal's momma used to sing him to sleep, way back when, and they had the occasional barn dance, all fiddles and whistles and interlocked arms. Jessie Sing had had lovely arms, in fact, lovely arms that became lovely hands that she'd known just how to use in the right sort of way. But he didn't know how much he'd missed music until Inara came into the galley with a present from one of her more cultured...admirers.

They'd been eyeing Jayne's attempt at dinner - didn't know it was possible to make mashed protein taste any worse, but somehow the man had managed it - when she sashayed in, a bundle of silks in her hands. Grateful for the interruption, Mal had pushed his plate away, addressing her with false cheer and a hint of desperation.

"Well, if it ain't Inara come to rub shoulders with the common folk."

Kaylee followed suit, dropping her chopsticks with relief. "'Nara, whatcha got there?"

The companion shot him an irritated look which magically turned into a smile by the time it reached Kaylee, and she sat herself across from him before deigning to respond. "A gift," she told them, and he'd hardly had his mouth open and ready to ask from who? before she continued. "One that I think we'll all enjoy."

Wasn't often that Inara's clientèle thought of the crew's welfare. "Well, then, that's mighty generous," he said, for want of anything more scathing to say.

Simon tested Jayne's concoction and grimaced, resting his chopsticks on the side of his plate before wiping his mouth with a linen napkin. Where the doc had gotten that, Mal wasn't sure of, but it was a conundrum to be saved for another day. "I'm almost interested to meet this man," Simon added, indicating the bundle with a tilt of his head. "A gift for the whole family is surely not a common occurrence."

"I sure hope it's money," Jayne muttered around a mouthful of whatever it was. Luckily he seemed to have been born without taste buds, allowing him to eat the go se without a problem. Even Zoe - who'd lived on Independent rations, something he'd swear were made from cardboard or the like - had pushed her plate closer to Jayne, probably hoping he'd take her share as well. In fact, the only person eating - aside from the chef, of course - was River, who seemed to be chewing with a look of complete concentration. She was staring at her plate, a slight frown on her face, and he wondered if she was deconstructing the contents, or the like. Maybe she had some explanation as to how Jayne had made protein powder and water taste so gorram bad.

"I doubt there were noble intentions," Inara told Simon with a smile in her voice. He glanced away from River and watched Inara draw the silks apart until they lay in a pool on the table. A strange contraption greeted them once the layers had been pulled back, and he eyed it critically, wondering what the hell it was.

"Shiny," Kaylee breathed, pushing back her chair and moving closer to Inara. "Just...what is it?"

Inara picked up the object and turned it over in her hands so that everyone could get a look. "It's a lap-harp," she told them, sliding a finger around the flat top and stroking it down one of the strings. He scowled at the ideas her languid touch conjured, and looked back down at the grayish turd-thing sitting on his plate. Lump, he told himself firmly. Think of foul-tasting lumps, not other things.

"Ah." Simon nodded and leaned back in his chair. "I haven't seen one of those in years."

"Real wood?" Jayne asked, mouth still full. The texture of the goop had been a bit iffy as well, so maybe Jayne's mouth would stick shut.

"Wood and catgut," River said suddenly, and Mal blinked. "Catgut and metal and fingers, all in a row. Just an object, but an object with power. Notes that are written on the air let anyone write."

Inara's brow creased but she gave the girl an indulgent smile. "Not anyone, River. Musicians need to be trained - it can be very difficult to learn how to play. I had some music education, but I only remember simple songs."

"Simple," River agreed, and then he realised she was arguing the point. "Music is simple mathematics."

Inara blinked. "I've never really thought of it that way," she replied carefully, placing the lap-harp back down. "And I'm certain there would be more than one musician that would want to disagree with that."

"All wrong." River stood, not pushing her chair back, but stepping off it like she was disembarking a carriage. "Music is just aural mathematics, numbers on a staff. Five lines and infinite spaces with sharp parts and flat bits." She paused, cocking her head. "Symphony of serenity needs to be written. Duty calls me. And you." She swivelled until her dark eyes met Mal's confused ones, boring in until her voice rang in his head. "No serenity without the captain, always need to balance the good with the bad."

He swallowed. Was this where he interjected with something that wasn't crazy? Hell, it didn't have to be him. Zoe was the voice of reason, or maybe Jayne, hopefully Jayne's jaw hadn't stuck and he could burp or something --

Huh. Never thought he'd be thinking that.

River sighed as if she'd been expecting him to understand and picked up her plate. Her empty plate, the non-disturbed part of Mal's brain observed with some surprise. "Dinner had satisfactory protein," she told Jayne, whose laden chopsticks paused halfway to his mouth, "but lacked necessary flavourings that would have interacted with our papillae and microvilli. I look forward to Zoe's meal tomorrow and hope it contains actual taste."

She gave him a nod then strode regally to the bench, leaving her plate on the sink and walking out the door. Mal watched her go, turning back to Inara and raising an eyebrow at the instrument. "Lap-harp?" he asked, eyeing the thing. "Or a big damn calculator that makes noise?"

Simon gave a tight laugh. "Actually, there has been research that correlates River's assertion that people gifted in mathematics are able musicians as well. River can --" his face darkened, "well, River was always quite talented on the piano."

"Thought it was that your sister's good at everything." Mal looked at his plate again and decided he wasn't that hungry after all.

"'Specially the creepifying," Jayne agreed, reaching for Zoe's plate. She looked relieved to have it away from her. "Best damn crazy I ever did see."

Mal had to agree with that, though to be fair he hadn't known that many crazies. Or had extended dealings with the ones he did meet.

Kaylee cleared her throat. "So, uh...wanna play somethin' for us, 'Nara?"

Inara nodded. "Certainly. Perhaps some Xiangen?"

"That will bring back memories." Simon leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. "Mother always liked to play Xiangen at dinner parties."

"Captain?" He looked up to find Inara's eyes on him, her face amused. "Do you have any objections to some music at this hour?"

He shook his head and sat back in his chair, determined to keep River and her nonsense from his mind. "Don't much see as how I could say no. It can be just like Simon's dinner parties, good food, fine wine," he raised his mug, filled as it was with water, "and the most excellent strains of Xing Yen floating through the air."

"Xiangen," Inara corrected him, moving her fingers over the strings again. A few soft notes drifted out from the instrument and everyone except Jayne seemed to hold their breath.

The mercenary chewed some more. "Before we get all musical-like, I do have one question." Inara paused and Mal felt suddenly very wary of what the other man was going to say. "What do y'all think she meant about the meal and no taste?"

There was a beat of silence and then Inara's fingers were flying and music filled the air, and Mal had never been so happy for Jayne to have the last word.

- - -

She was lucid enough the next day, if distracted somewhat, sitting in the co-pilot's chair like a living, breathing ghost. Mal and the dinosaurs tried to maintain a companionable silence, but after a couple of hours he felt it necessary to say something - anything - if only to reassure himself she hadn't taken a turn for the worse.

"You missed some fine music last night," he told her, switching on to auto-pilot and turning in his chair. "For all her faults, Inara can play a pretty tune."

She rested her head on her knees and slid her eyes across, regarding him thoughtfully for a moment. "Fault lines are where tectonic plates get too close together, rubbing and rubbing till an earthquake comes. She is one plate and you are another. You can rub but never join and are destined to be apart."

He missed that companionable silence already. "Well then. Ain't telling me nothing I don't know already, little one. Although I'm beginning to realise what a nice thing tact may be."

"Changing tack won't change the truth."

He expelled a heavy breath that wasn't quite a sigh. "Still, next time she trots out that lap-harp of hers, maybe you should stick around and listen. Music's a damn fine thing to have about. Takes you away, it does, lets you think outside yourself."

She turned her head from side to side, mussing her hair until it flopped over her face. "Not that music," she told him acidly, a hank of hair catching on her nose. "Prettiful but empty, a meaningless shell of sound. I'll stay when there's real music, when the spaces and sharps and flat bits come together in the way that serenity deserves."

She stood abruptly with that fluid grace that always surprised him and moved to leave the bridge, pausing at the doorway and looking over her shoulder. "I'll copy down the song of serenity, but remember I didn't write it, not alone, never alone. A composition of a composition has many parts make a whole."

She was gone without another word or sound and he turned back to the controls, giving the stegosaurus a tired look. "Sometimes I think I get her," he told it, reaching out to right an angled palm tree, "and sometimes it hits home that she's not quite all there."

The dinosaur chose not to answer, but he wasn't sure what light it could shed, even if it could.

- - -

The next week was a bit unsettling, to say the least. In fact, it was probably an understatement, Mal thought a few days later, finding her on Jayne's bunk, watching the merc polish his guns.

"I don't know why she's here," Jayne told him, a tic appearing above the scar on his cheek, "but I'd find it a lot more peacable if she'd leave me alone in my own damn room."

"Low and slow," River said, as if coming to a decision. "Not quite steady as a heartbeat, that's you," she looked at Mal, "but regular all the same. Simple, very simple." She rose and moved past him, out the door and into the hall. Kaylee bustled by on a mission to the engine room, and River followed her out of sight.

Mal turned back to Jayne. "I've got no inkling of what's on her mind, I'll tell you that now."

Jayne shoved a casing into one of his guns, a thunderous expression on his face. "Didn't suppose you did. But I think the gorram sheng jing bing just insulted my intelligent to my face."

Tact, thought Mal. Tact. And trying to retain some small semblance of it, he left without another word.

- - -

The next day, at lunch time, she cornered Zoe at the table. "Strong," River pronounced, looking Zoe up and down. "Not high but not low. Middle range of comfort, dependable choice of notes."

At dinner it was Simon who had the benefit of her diagnosis. "High like aspirations. Low like self-belief. Intermingling and jangling like a worry settling over the heart."

Kaylee doing a midnight check found River in the engine room, nodding to herself. "Definitely in tune. Light like bubbles in an oil can or the sun on a strawberry leaf. High-reaching dreams with a shiver on the string."

She was outside Inara's door the next morning. "Subtle. Solemn. Play gentle with a heavy hand. Repress the sound, the life. Choose to be a plate and rub, rub, rub."

It was all very puzzling, made the more so by River's apparent normalcy out of these strange, focused times. She'd be mid-sentence just talking, and then she'd fix someone with a stare and spout nonsense. It was like she was passing judgement on them, or something, summing them up in her own way, and while it didn't make much - or any - sense, Mal was still half-dreading the moment when those dark, timeless eyes would fix on him. He wasn't sure he wanted to have himself neatly tied up in a few sentences of strung-together gibberish.

But he waited anyway, waited for his turn, and he was surprised as the rest of them when his denouncement never came. Instead, when Inara pulled out her lap-harp once more, River just got to her feet and slipped out the door.

Simon rose, his eyes following her out. "I'm not sure what she's thinking," he said, moving after her.

Jayne snorted. "Not like anyone does, Doc."

"Perhaps she doesn't care for my playing?" Inara tried for a light tone but there was a hint of irritation in it as well. Mal had an inkling that she hadn't taken kindly to the rubbing plates comment, and he didn't really blame her. He'd gotten it in context, after all. She just hadn't been lucky enough for that.

Simon was still on his way to the door when River was back again, a sheaf of papers in her hand. She moved past him without a word and marched over to Inara, plonking her bundle on the table.

"Where did you get that paper, River?" Simon looked faintly perplexed to Mal's mind, but that expression could mean almost anything, with a face like his.

The girl shrugged. "Packaging from cargo. They didn't need the paper, waste goes in the wastebasket. I rescued it for better things."

"You went through goods we transported?" Oh, he didn't like her doing that. Not one bit. "Goods we transported where we told the owners that we wouldn't touch?"

River met his eyes. "Layers," was all she said. He had a perfectly blustery retort to that too, but before he could get it out his mouth Inara interrupted, picking up one of the papers and holding it up.

"River, what's this?" She skimmed the page hastily before putting it down and picking up the next. "This music, where did you get it?"

"Music?" Zoe asked, looking as baffled as Mal felt. He was mightily confused and a tad bereft - he'd been cheated out of blustering, after all.

He got to his feet and leaned over the table. The pages were covered in spindly lines with dots in funny places, some of them joined with more lines. He recognised the basic structure from his hymn book but he'd never learned what they all meant. His momma had never deemed it necessary, and there were plenty more things that she did, and had. And if Ma Reynolds deemed something necessary, then it damned well was and had to be done.

"Didn't get it, made it. It's us on paper but flattened out. Captured sound needing to be set free." Her earnest eyes sought him out again and he swallowed, elusive comprehension dangling just out of reach.

Jayne scowled. "Thought you was getting better, girlie. Seems to me you're crazier than ever."

Simon frowned in his direction. "Maybe if you didn't keep calling her crazy, she'd be more inclined to regulate her behaviour."

"Maybe if she weren't crazy --"

"Maybe," Inara interrupted, voice steely, "if everyone stopped talking, I could read this piece and try to play it?"

That shut everyone up. Kaylee perked at the promise of new music - Inara's repertoire was a tad limited - and turned to River. "Did you write this, River?"

The girl nodded. "Wrote it down but didn't make it. The sounds were already there, they just needed form." She leaned in close to Inara. "I made it simple for you. I left out the orchestral bits. This is just for your instrument."

Inara blinked, the closest Mal had ever seen her get to actual surprise. "Left out...the orchestral bits," she repeated faintly, eyeing the paper with trepidation.

"Yes," said River. "Can you play it?"

Smooth hands stroked over the strings. "I'm not certain," Inara hedged. "Sight-reading--"

"I can play it," River said. "I can play it if you can't."

Mal watched as Inara's face hardened almost imperceptibly, resolve coming out of nowhere to press her lips together in a thin line. "Yes," she replied eventually. "I can play it just fine."

River took the seat beside her. "I'll turn the pages."

Tuning the little instrument, Inara glanced over the sheets again. As soon as everyone had settled themselves, she began to play.

He liked music just fine, did Mal. It was nice not thinking on problematic issues, and sometimes a snatch of song was just the ticket to distancing the mind. He appreciated a good melody, liked something with a good tune. He wasn't a musician by any stretch, but he'd venture to say he could tell a good tune from a bad one.

And whatever River had conjured was so far off good he thought his brain would melt out his nose.

It started with a beat, two of the middle strings going thrum-thrum under Inara's fingers, thrum-thrum like a heart. It wasn't tuney though, kinda dull, to say the fact, just those two strings speeding up occasionally and then slowing back down. It went on for a while, Zoe's polite smile growing distant and Jayne's short attention span meeting up with his short temper.

"Is that it?" he asked in disgust. "I ain't wanting much more of this if it's just two bits that sound the same."

Mal was tempted to agree with him - wasn't much excitement to be found so far. And then came another beat so that it went thrum-thrum, thrum-thrum. The second one was higher and steadier than the changing notes of the first. It was comforting, almost, seemed like the second one supported the first. Even it wasn't enough to make the song exciting, but just when he thought he'd had enough, Inara's fingers stroked down over all the strings, a high-low strum that used the whole harp.

He stopped breathing. He knew that sound. Had to know it, everything in his body was telling him he knew it but his mind couldn't place it.

"Won't," River said clearly, putting a piece of paper down.

Simon shot her a concerned look but Inara kept playing, kept that beat still going with an occasional strum of the strings. The sound ate at his belly and prodded at his mind but he still didn't know it.

River looked at him. He reached for the thought, could swear he almost found the recognition, when the song changed, sharp and abrupt. Suddenly the heartbeats stopped and a merry tune came from nowhere, Inara's fingers fair dancing on the strings. And well they should dance because the tune was light and carefree, it was innocent and warm and it was

-- Kaylee, his mei mei, laughing and smiling, humming in the engine room --

and then the first heartbeat came back, but it was slow and out of place until the second one came back also, supporting the first

-- Zoe, stoic and solid, a comforting weight that gave everything she had so he could do the same --

and then that eerie, familiar strum once more, and a beat of silence.

River turned the page.

The tune changed again, Inara picking out specific notes this time with only one finger, a cautious, careful selection that made him wonder why other notes weren't being played. Then the thrum-thrum again, only faster, and the second thrum-thrum, steady as before, and around it the airy, cheerful strains that had run out all before

-- Inara, with her secrets, and that one inescapable truth, a victim of polite society and her stubbornness and his own --

River was looking at him now, only him, dropping the pages as if by instinct, but of course she knew when each part ended because she'd written the damn thing after all. And he didn't want to make eye contact, didn't want her to be telling him things with a look, hated that even music wasn't benign any more, it had some ulterior motives as well. All he wanted was honesty, simple things like the simple tune Inara was playing now, just a few notes repeated

-- Jayne, with a few thoughts, a few hungers and a few words to say, no doubt --

and then the reintroduction of those other sounds before silence once more.

Mal knew it for what it was now, knew she'd meant what she said. And when Inara started the next part he could pick it instantly, the highest note, then the lowest, and then everything in between, strumming a few of the middle ones like was testing if they were right.

-- right like Simon always is about their welfare, testing in the middle like he tests his acceptance all the damn time--

Then the heart-sound again, but before the other sounds came back Inara took a sharp breath and --

discord.

Jayne hadn't said a thing since his outburst at the start and it seemed like he'd been lulled in because he jumped at the jangle of notes and slapped his hands to his ears.

"Cao!" he swore. "What the blazes is that?!"

Everyone else looked surprised or pained but River was unaffected, still looking at him.

"Crazy," they whispered together.

-- crazy like little River, running in every which direction, but never the right way, not back to the sea --

But then the heartbeat, and the high-low, and the steady second heartbeat, and the airy tune and the pick-out notes and the simple song, and if Mal had any thought left in his brain he'd have half a grudging smidgen of respect for Inara, who could certainly handle a tune. But he didn't, and then that strum came again, swallowing up all the separate pieces and making them in to one. She strummed once more, and once again, and then it was over and Inara was putting the instrument down with shaking fingers and a pale face.

"Well," said Zoe eventually, always the most level in situations like these. "That was certainly...interesting."

"Damn weird, if you ask me," said Jayne, pushing back from the table, looking angry and something else. "I'm going to bed - that is, if I don't get the willies from that freaky song."

He strode out, Zoe nodding after a moment. "I'll catch some shut-eye too. Nice playing," she told Inara, "and an unusual composition."

River inclined her head.

Inara didn't look at anyone. "I need a drink," she stated, and Mal wouldn't blame her if it wasn't tea. She left as regally as always, but he thought she might be wondering just what it all meant.

Simon had one of his ambiguous look again. "River," he started, but Kaylee reached out and took him by the hand.

"A right pretty song that were," Kaylee told her, smiling and nodding at Mal as well. "Somethin' about it just rang true, don't you think, Simon?"

The doctor still looked - unsettled, maybe? - but allowed himself to be drawn out of the room.

And while mathematics had never been his strong suit, Mal was fairly certain that left just two.

"Three," River corrected, reaching out to tidy the papers.

"Did I mention how much I don't like that mind-wandering?" he retorted, watching her smooth the papers. "And it is two, I'll have you know. You and me."

She turned to him then, that dark fall of her hair spilling over her shoulders like a sigh. "And Serenity."

He swallowed, forgetting how to breathe again. So that's why it had been so familiar, that encompassing strum that had spoken to him from the first moment it appeared.

"So it was us." Huh. She'd gone and done it, made them into a song. A composition of a composition, she'd said, and damned if she wasn't making sense after all.

"Sense is a state of mind," she told him, leaving the papers on the table and crossing to where he still sat in the chair. "Like craziness, or stupidity, or choosing to not understand."

He processed this. Hopefully he was only guilty of the last one - although the first fitted him, on the odd occasion. "You did well," he said awkwardly, not really knowing what to say. She'd managed to encapsulate them, bring them down to sounds and scribbles and fingers on some strings, and yet she'd also made them larger than life. It was frightening and it was humbling and he was always underestimating this slip of a girl.

She knelt beside his chair and looked up into his face. He couldn't ignore her at this distance, so he made the mistake of looking right back.

"Do you know what you are?" She hadn't told him, in the end, hadn't told him in so many words what he boiled down to.

Not trusting himself to speak, he shook his head.

She reached out and up, and took one of his hands, smoothing out his fist until his palm was open and flat. Then she moved it to her chest and pressed it above her heart.

His mouth went dry as his palms grew damp with sweat and he concentrated on the steady beat of her heart instead of the other stuff in her general chest area.

"What am I?" he asked, throat scratchy and voice raw.

She didn't answer for a moment and he tried to move away, but her bird-bones arms, thin as twigs and half the weight, they held him in place like they were made of steel. Her eyes bored into his and he felt naked and defenseless, and for some gorram reason he couldn't bring himself to care.

"Like calls to like," she whispered. "Takes one to know one. It's your heart that brings us together, your heart that makes this a home. You had heart enough for Serenity and that's why she loves you as well."

He'd told her something about love before, but he couldn't remember a line of it at all. He wasn't thinking, couldn't be thinking, not that anyways --

And then she'd moved her hand and his hand and there was space - blessed space! - between them. He felt relieved and disappointed and then angry and confused.

She knew what he was thinking, of course, but it would be easy that way and they didn't do easy, none of them did. So he asked and thought she might answer.

"Why?"

She cocked her head at him. "There's a longer version. Two more parts."

He'd guessed as much. "Wash and Book."

"Too difficult for one instrument. Eight parts in an octave, eight parts all she can take."

But --

"Why did I write it down now?" She guessed - knew - what was on his mind. Her face was thoughtful. "It was time. Serenity wanted to hear her song. She hadn't thought of it till Inara's music, soulless correct equations of music bouncing around the cabin. Wanted real music." She slid him a measuring glance under her eyelashes. "Wanted you."

He swallowed again and let his gaze sweep the galley, looked, really looked, at the bits and pieces, the shadows and metal that made Serenity whole. He stood and turned in a circle, and the fact that River was in his field of vision was something to save for another day. Didn't matter how right it felt to have her there, nor would he dwell on the event of music bringing to this appreciation of it all. He looked at Serenity and he felt it, felt the strum, felt the press of notes that swept him up and held them all together. He wasn't sure what had brought him here, but this moment was a good one, and he felt a strange sort of peace for the first time in a long while.

"Well then." He tried to smile and hoped it stuck. "She's got me."

River just stood there. "Yes," she said, her voice so certain, so definite that he almost wanted to see what she saw. "She has."

And while his musical knowledge was limited to the faint memories of his momma's voice and those barn dances of old, Mal swore as he followed River on to the bridge that the stars were keeping time with them, and that they were caught up - somehow - in a symphony of their own.



Let me know what you think on my first venture into the Firefly fandom!