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 meet his. He bleeds and is resolute in his strategy as he orders them to work and stalks off leaving an unseen trail of red in the dust of Haven.

He strokes the steadfast frame of the ship he loves, the ship that cradles his wounded soul and flies him to freedom without reservation. He hides in her shadows; his grief pouring over him, through him, from him and flooding her secret parts with his need.

I taste his tears though they haven’t fallen, they burn me with their captivity and I ache for his release from this bloody dark despair.

I watch as he presses his back to the solid mass of his soul’s safe haven and I know he finds the strength he needs to see what he doesn’t want to see. I gently stroke his cheek imagining the wetness of tears that fall only in his mind. He doesn’t want to see, but he will look and I know that Serenity gives him the comfort he lacks and the fortitude he deserves and the will to discover the truth.

The burning awful truth that has burned my brain for so long; and he will find it, and he will see it, and he will cut the burning coal from my soul. Giving me back my ravaged mind, because he sees me bleeding and he won’t leave me to bleed alone. He enfolds me in his strong arms and he is bleeding, I am bleeding and I loose the tears he cannot shed.

Broken! Bleeding! Weeping! Free! Nestled within Serenity, we wait for the truth Miranda hides, all the while bleeding.