Chapter Text
River Tam whimpers in her sleep, body twitching, toes curling upward, red hair tossing against her pillow until with unnatural suddenness, she shoots upward in a tangle of bedcovers and out of the bed, screaming. She hits the door and runs down it.
“The dancer! The dancer! The bad, bloody dance…”
And Simon is struggling to wrap his arms around her, but she keeps screaming and yanking herself out of his grip.
“No, she’s coming. She needs us. The bad, bloody dance.” The words run in a stream of strange and frightening and needful pleading all in one.
The commotion has brought the entire crew out of the woodwork, and Mal exchanges looks with Simon and Zoe.
“Well, ain’t that just interesting,” the captain says.
—
Of nights, Clint curls his body protectively around hers, never mind he knows how dangerous Natasha can be. But she is pale and weary and thrashes in her sleep, full of the thoughts of too many people around her, too many dark fears she can’t quite shove to the back of her head like others do.
He stays awake, tense and watchful, listening to the fitful sounds of Budapest. It’s a backwater moon where only the lowest, barely scraping by traders come to visit. It’s exactly the kind of place they need to be.
Natasha’s limbs grow fitful. He hushes her gently. Sometimes it works, and she clings to him tighter, digging nails into his arms without waking. Other times, it doesn’t work and he becomes thankful that he was trained in security and combat, or else she would be too much for him, and he’d likely end up dead. Tonight, she wakes abruptly with a sharp cry.
“Tasha, Tasha.” He calls her name soothingly for as long as it takes.
She shakes her head violently, cheeks flushed, and then stares out the window for a long moment. Finally, she hears him and looks at him. She sees him and curls abruptly into his arms.
“We have to go,” she says in a surprisingly collected voice.
Clint studies her. There is no fear, nor even that heedless confidence she gets sometimes. “Is someone coming after us?” he asks quietly.
She shakes her head again. “Coming for us.” She pats his hand. “Coming to help.” Then she settles her head back on the pillow and goes out like a light.
Clint scrubs his hair and face with his hand before deciding there is nothing to be done. When she gets back to her own brand of crazy, which thankfully isn’t all the time, there’s no stopping her or understanding, just roll with it. So he does. He rolls over, wraps himself around her, and keeps one hand near his weapon, one ear open to the night.
—
River curls up in the co-pilot’s chair and Malcolm watches her stare quietly out the front window.
“Not much going there,” he points out, “not where we’re headed.” That barren dustball moon of Budapest has little going for it, few resources, and very few contacts where Mal can unload their cargo.
River just looks over at him and smiles, then turns back to watch the stars.