Dreamer

[jackwabbit]

Dreamer
Author: jackwabbit
Fandom: Firefly
Rated: PG
Category: Gen, FutureFic.
Summary: As A Dreamer Of Dreams And A Travelin' Man, I Have Chalked Up Many A Mile. Read Dozens Of Books About Heroes and Crooks, And I Learned Much From Both Of Their Styles.

Thanks to Jimmy Buffett For The Perfect Summary.  For twilight seeker3.

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The little girl fiddled with the switches in the console for the millionth time in her short life.

She leaned her lithe body to and fro and made explosion noises with her small voice.

Suddenly, however, the noises died down, and she wiped a grubby hand across her sweating brow.

She spoke with exaggerated relief, though she was alone.

“Whew! That was a close one!”

She relaxed in the too big chair and collapsed onto the dashboard in front of her.

After a moment, her eyes grew distant as her mind wandered into the dreamland reserved for little girls on lazy summer afternoons.

She stared into the pale blue of the sky that peaked through the windows of her fantasy for what seemed an eternity.

But eventually, as always, she returned to the world.

She did so suddenly, with a blink.

She seemed to have noticed the little figures on the console for the first time.

It wasn’t the first time, of course, but her face lit with the joy of discovery all the same.

It was time for a new game.

The girl reached one sticky hand out to the console.

But it didn’t push buttons or toggle switches.

Instead, it gripped a molded chunk of plastic.

The girl smiled.

Her other hand mimicked the first.

Then she spoke, using two very distinct voices.

First, her left hand spoke.

“This waterin hole ain’t big enough for the both of us!”

Her right answered.

“ARRRGH! That’s what you think, leaf-eater!”

The Tyrannosaurus rex made a move for the Stegosaurus’s throat, but the blow never made impact.

A much older masculine voice rang out, and the girl’s movements stilled.

“Kaylee Washburne Cobb! You get your gorram ass in here right this minute!”

Dinosaurs clattered the to cockpit floor.

The girl ran home as fast as her legs could carry her.

Her ship was empty again.

But only for the day.

The girl’s name, a gift from her long dead grandfather, wasn’t all she had in common with the former occupants of the ship.

Her blood ran true to theirs, too.

And long after she’d taken her licks for disappearing again without doing her chores, she gazed out her bedroom window and sighed.

Her breath became part of the night air that kissed the hull of a once great Firefly that had come to rest in her backyard.

And as she drifted to sleep, she smiled.

She knew she’d have the same dream she had every night.

Serenity  would rise again.