Life on this boat. A Firefly story. #fanfic

Life in space

The days passed by and the girls came to accept Serenity as a temporary home.
Lou felt relieved, but still worried. Brooke had found company in River and River obviously enjoyed the younger girl's attention. For hours, River would show an unexpected amount of patience explaining the most mundane basics of reading and writing to Brooke. And Brooke in turn, having found someone to look up to spent the same amount of time trying to learn what River taught her. Sometimes Kaylee would join in or invite Brooke to explore the engine. The little girl somehow brought a smile to everyones face.
Saphire however would spend hours sitting on the stairs in the cargo bay, disinterested in the goings on around her. Lou worried and tried to get her to do something, but she just drifted back to her spot on the stairs.
One morning Jayne came down the stairs heading for the weights when he stopped and sat down with her.
"Hey there girlie," he tried cheerfully.
"Hey," Saphire said sceptically.
"I think I know what you need," he said.
Saffy shrugged.
"See. Your mama, she's a clever one. She figured that if River beat on that punching bag, it helped with being angry," he said.
Saphire looked at him.
"You wanna try?" He asked.
"Not really," Saphire said.
"Right. Sometimes a punching bag ain't enough tho. So if you need to beat on a person. You come find me," he said and stood up to leave.
"You mean you want me to hit you?" Saphire asked.
"Yeah. If you need to," he shrugged.
Soon after Lou came past as well heading for the punchbag. She ruffled her daughter's hair on the way past.
Once at the weights she was met by a sirprisingly cheerful smile.
"Couldn't stay away from me, huh?" Jayne grinned.
"Yup. You are simply irresistible," Lou laughed sarcastically.
"Fight or weight?" He asked.
"Do you really need to ask?" Lou grinned and took up a boxing stance.
Jayne winked at her and came towards her with a big grin verging between threatening and playful.

Before either could make a move they heard commotion from the stairs and suddenly, Saphire was standing in front of Lou with Jayne's gun pointed at his chest. Her aim true and without any shaking.
"Don't you dare try to hurt my Mama! I swear i will shoot you dead if you try!" The little girl screamed at him. Jayne stepped back in sheer surprise bumping into the weightbench and sat down with a bump. Lou lowered her hands and kneeled down in front of Saffy, painfully aware that this meant the gun was now trained on her own head.
"Damned child is crazy," Jayne mumbled.
"Saphire. I think you have misunderstood sweetie," Lou said patiently.
"No. He was gonna hurt you. I seen it in his eyes," Saphire said, tears rolling down her cheeks but still holding the gun steadily trained on Jayne.
"What do you mean?" Lou said laying a hand on the gun and forcing it to point down.
"He looked the same as that man who paid for me to be in his bed," Saphire said.
"How so?" Lou continued suddenly worried. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know, but the child had finally opened some door into her emotions and Lou knew that this had to be handled right.
"He came to me with that look on his face. And then he took my trousers off and told me I was pretty. He was gonna hurt me. So I took his gun and shot him in the head," the girl said in a dead voice.
"Gorramit," Lou heard Jayne mutter behind her.
"You did the right thing, sweetheart," Lou said hugging her now crying daughter.
"And now. He... he looked at you almost hungry like that. Like he was gonna eat you," Saphire said with an angry look at Jayne.
Lou threw a look at Jayne. His face was far from calm and wearing a big grin.
"What?" Lou asked.
"She ain't far wrong. Besides you're damned tasty," he said flicking his tounge out at her before going in to the dining area chuckling at his own wit.
Despite her best efforts she could not stop a modest blush and an amused smile from crossing her face before she turned back to the child in front of her.
"Sweetie. Jayne would never hurt me. We fight sometimes for the exercise and for practice, but he would never hurt me on purpose," Lou explained.
Saphire studied Lou for a second.
"You sure?" She asked.
"Yes! As sure as I am that we are safe on this ship," Lou assured her daughter.
"Then why did he look at you that way?" Saphire asked.
Lou took a few moments to think about what to tell her daughter before she spoke.
"And you looked at him a bit like that too," Saphire said.
Lou drew a deep breath.
"Why don't you just tell me what happened with the man you shot, " Lou said, figuring that this could get complicated.
"We were on that rocky moon and the man said we had to wear skirts but I didn't wanna. And he said he was gonna get his money from us and we had to lie down and spread our legs for those that paid. Brooke didn't get it so I never told her what he meant. She thought it had something to do with swimming so she's still pissed about not going to the water. The man said he'd put Brooke and me on different moons if I didn't do the sex thing so I didn't think I had a choice," Saphire mumbled.
Lou looked at the way her daughter pulled at the frayed hem of her shirt while she spoke.
"And then I had to go in a room and the man seemed nice enough, but then he looked all hungry like that and had a weird smile so I got frightened. And I took his gun right out of his belt and shot him in the face when he came crawling up on me. I killed a man, Mama... I killed him and he is dead 'coz of me," Saphire said before bursting into shaking sobs. All Lou could do was sit there with her arms around the small frail body, cursing the asshole who tried to prostitute her girls.
All the while she murmured into Saphire's hair how she had done the right thing and how she was a brave girl.
Once the worst sobbing was over, Lou looked into Saphire's beautiful green eyes with the warmest smile she could muster.
"You are so brave. I am so incredibly proud of you for standing up for yourself. You are my warrior," Lou said.
"But I killed someone," Saphire mumbled.
"You defended yourself Saffy. You stopped someone from hurting you," Lou smiled.
"But he is dead. And there was blood and he had no face," Saphire said.
"He deserved it," Lou said bitterly.

A short while later, Saphire had fallen into an exhausted sleep in their cabin and Lou walked into the dining area.
"You are so inappropriate!" She said giving Jayne a mild slap over the back of the head.
"What? You just discovered that?" Wash asked.
"Came as a shock," Lou smiled at the pilot.
Wash laughed and went up to the bridge.
Jayne sat there with a smile as if his shit didn't stink.
"Turned you on tho didn't I?" He grinned.
"Hardly the point!" Lou said.
"But I did..." he laughed before turning back to eating.
"Jayne!" Lou tried sounding angry but had to hold back a laugh.
He shot her a teasing look.
"She's been struggling with the fact that she killed a man. Try to be a human," she told him as she sat down with a protein bar.
"Good. Girl needs to defend herself," Jayne nodded approvingly.
"Yeah, but she'd never killed before," Lou said.
"She might not need to again," Jayne shrugged.
"From her reaction to this one, let's hope she doesn't have to," Lou replied.