Title: Trapped Author: Ana Sedai Rating: PG (R if you speak Mandarin) Character(s): Mal, River Prompt: 030 - Coffin Word Count: 939 A/N: 12/100 for Joss100. The hits just keep on a-comin’… Summary: Mal thinks on the traps that River gets him in, and out of.

************************************** My God, she looks so small in there.

Of all the myriad thoughts that had careened through Mal’s head in those first few seconds after kicking that crate open, that was the one he remembered most clearly. Before the confusion, the anger, the indignation, all he could think was how tiny and fragile she seemed.

Mal had never taken kindly to the idea of trading in human lives, but the pure rage that had seared his brain when he considered what this prissy-shirted, gan ni niang of a lao mao was most likely plannin’ to do to this girl had surprised even himself. First he used Kaylee’s life as a bargaining tool, and now this.

“The shock of what…Waking up… Finding out she's been sold to some borderworld baron?” Mal’s voice rose with each questioning word. “Or, I'm sorry --was this one for you?”

Mal had actually felt the man’s windpipe crunching beneath his fingers…

That should have been his first clue about River Tam’s effect on him.

Fortunately for her brother’s continued existence, she had chosen that second start screaming.

For such a little thing, she sure had a set of lungs on her.

It wasn’t until later that Mal had fully appreciated the irony of the circumstances surrounding that first day. He’d been all geared up to rescue a girl trapped inside a crate, only to discover that the trap was inside the girl.

For a long time, that trap had kept River inside her own self. Talking in circles, in sentences no one could understand, she kept trying to make herself heard. He’d listened to her ramblings on occasion, and was surprised to discover that he understood quite a bit, more than he was comfortable with, truth to tell.

That should have been his second clue.

She’d started to come out of her shell some, after Early had graced them with his presence. It’d looked like she was actually starting to break out of her prison.

Then she had started hanging around him more.

She didn’t make herself a bother. She just sometimes looked at him with her head cocked, like he was some kind of gorram complicated math problem. It made him a mite tetchy. He’d had enough to deal with without her dogging his steps. One day he had just stared right back and abruptly asked her what she was doing.

“Whatsa matter, River, I got food on my face or somethin’?”

Her face took on a saddened expression.

“It’s all over you. Don’t know how to clean it up. You’re worried there won’t be enough to go around.”

And damn it all if he hadn’t understood that, too.

He’d let out a breath and rubbed his temples, asking himself why he even tried keeping things from a psychic. Hell, he couldn’t even keep things from Zoë.

“Yeah, well, don’t you go worryin’ yourself on that score, girl. There’s plenty a’ jobs. We just have to look harder, is all.”

She got a crafty look in her eye. All of a sudden he’d felt very, very nervous.

“I could be of use on jobs, you know. See things. Hear things. Know before trouble comes.”

Well. It wasn’t like he hadn’t considered it. He’d also rejected it. Taking a crazy girl on a heist? Forget it. Taking a crazy wanted girl on a heist wasn’t just tempting fate, it was offering fate wine and roses and askin’ it to stay the night.

However, that had been before their usual steady trickle of jobs had dwindled to something more resembling the drip-drip of a leaky faucet. Beggars didn’t have the luxury of being choosers, and their food pantry had been feeling the effects.

So, he’d been face-to-face with another trap. And this time River had been the one offering him a way out of it. He hadn’t liked the means, but Mal was a pragmatist first and foremost. He’d made his decision by the time Fanty and Mingo had WAVE’d him a few days later.

He’d decided to avoid mentioning to the good Doctor that it was his little mei-mei who had been the one to suggest her involvement. No sense in making him burst any more blood vessels than necessary. Relations had been tense enough already.

******************

From a broken girl in a coffin to an often-creepifyin’ warrior woman, River was nothing if not changeable. Truth to tell, she fascinated him. So much of his life was drawn in shades of gray and brown, and she was pure vibrant color. Still, that changeability made her all manner of confusing at times.

Her words of late were filled with potential pitfalls, and he was having a hard time finding his way between them. The girl herself had now become the trap, one he was walking into all too willingly. He’d hated to think on her like that. River had no more artifice to her than Kaylee did. It had more to do with him, and the sense of inevitability he’d gotten to feeling around her. Accepting the inevitable had never been his way.

Still, he couldn’t just hang forever, and he couldn’t bring himself to deny her. So he’d made his first overture of acceptance yesterday, miniscule as it might have been. She’d recognized it, though, and acknowledged it with a smile and an acceptance of her own. There had been a shift, nothing grand or obvious, but a shift just the same.

He wasn’t sure exactly what kind of path he’d set himself on. He knew he ought to be nervous. He knew he ought to feel trapped. But he didn’t.

He felt free.