Time Is, Time Was, Time May Be

Stars shine around Serenity, but they lie as smoothly as she does.  Time now wasn't time then; stars shone, but it was old shine.  Time now for stars couldn't be seen, less'n you were too close to a star to see much of anything.

That's an easy truth, an everyone knew truth.  A lot of other truths aren't as easily explained, or maybe they were before the holes in River's head.

Time is, time was... some of 'em were dangerous.  Time isn't a river.  Time is a loom, like the old myths from Earth-That-Was where a thread started here and wandered there and a person only saw the crosshatch on all sides of 'em 'stead of the whole loom and weave.  Probably full of knots and snips and ravels, though.  People being people.

Time was, Cap'n had something in common with Wash.  Well, other than perfect names.  Most of 'em here have perfect names, come to that, but maybe that was just the 'Verse doing irony like She did best . Other than loving Zoë, though they didn't love her the same.  Time was, Cap'n floated on the winds easy as Wash did.  Time was, Cap'n's plans worked.  Not the way he thought they would, but that was just him thinkin', and that was never perfect.

Used to be, Cap'n saw the way the 'Verse wanted things to flow, and called it God's Will and angled his plans to catch the 'Verse's wind, the way Wash used to dance Serenity on magnetic tides and gravity wakes and solar winds and never missed a step.  Dancing old Earth dances and new Alliance patterns and Rebel beauties that the ignorant called 'natural phenomena' and 'ugly.'  Channeling what the 'Verse wanted and never seeing that others couldn't let it wash through.

Time is, no one but Zoë knows Cap'n used to do that.  Time was, she couldn't say it to him, 'cause Cap'n didn't know the 'Verse's real name is God, or maybe God's real name is 'Verse (it doesn't matter, it's just a side of the equation) and Cap'n wouldn't listen anyway.  Time is, Zoë still knows what he was doing, but she's got a hole in her where Wash was.  His love's still there along the edges, but he's gone, and his hands and his skin, so she's got a hole there.  It's filling up with unsaid words and unfelt touches, but it's still there, and still deep in the middle, and things spin around the edges before they drop in.  Zoë won't yell, so the words can't make it over yet, and she wouldn't say it anyway when Cap'n won't listen.

But it's true.  Time was, Cap'n would have let the Shepherd aboard and worried more that he could use a gun then that he could read a Book.  (The Book makes no sense.  It contradicts.  It rambles.  It tells the same thing different ways and they don't match.  But they all point to the same light, so maybe it works.  Even if sometimes you need a match.)

Shepherd knew about God's real name and about following the flow.  It would have been good if River'd figured this out before he died, but maybe she can tell him anyway.  Maybe.

That's time was.  Time is, Cap'n would let the Shepherd aboard again now, just to yell at him.  Time's not yet for that.  If the weave doesn't flow right, time never will be for that, and he'll be knotted over there for... longer than River can see, anyway.

She's named right, River knows.  She flows and carries and distorts light and goes around boulders, and mostly, she's where she needs to be in the shape she needs to be, and if they took her brain apart to make her like this, well, maybe they should have wondered what happens to water when you take away the flask.  She's a hand, and the gloves are off (two by two, gloves of blue and somewhere, there's another hand that's loose; two gloves, two hands, but the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, that's the way it goes, isn't it?) and you cannot step in the same river twice, and no one steps in her at all.  She just flows around them.

She flows around them, but Zoë flows through them and she's such a steady shine of life, Zoë is, low and banked now, but alive anyway and that's as it should be.  Zoë will live.  It's what she does, all right there if you know how to look.

Time was, Jain got named right.  He spells his name all wrong, but he says River gets it wrong, so she won't tell him why she's right.  Part of him knows how important names are; he named his best gun 'faith' so it would keep it.  Or is that truth?  River wonders what his mama was to know how to name things and teach even Jain to know it, or maybe she got it all wrong and Jayne gets it so wrong it's right?  Time was, though, and the 'Verse is carrying them on, so maybe names aren't the important thing.

Time is... Kaylee dances here, just like Jain, always here and now, and always shiny, a party of pretty noises and dances, keeping Serenity's engines from stepping on their own feet and stumbling across the stars.

Inara moves in steps and poses and looks like she's watching time is, but she's watching time was, too.  It doesn't change unless you know where to weave, but Inara watches anyway.  Sometimes she shines on important things.  Sometimes she just does what she's called to, and makes others call out to her.

Time was Simon thought he knew where he was called too, but he chose the wrong wizardry.  He works with blood and veins, hearts and brains.  Time is, time may be, time to choose again, time to play with them.  Watch the hand here and miss the hand there.  Miss direction, missed direction, misdirection, missed erection, except Kaylee smiles a lot.  At least he listens.

Captain's name's all wrong, though.  Mal means bad or evil.  Maybe he's combing through evil, to find the good?  If he'd just tack with the 'Verse a little more, maybe River could see.  Maybe.  Maybe the 'Verse is blowing him where She wants him, and it only hurts him so much 'cause he won't lean with it the way he used to.  Winds can blow masts out of a ship if you don't tack, or furl the sails.  Cap'n won't take in sail, so he'd better learn to angle again.

Time was.  Time is.  Time will be, it's just a question of where, and how they dance on the weave, or weave in the dance.

River watches the stars and in her mind she can see them dancing and the light like fabric rolling out around them.  'Verse's starlight weaves the way time's patterns do, with here and there connected through dark and light and sometimes they knot and sometimes they fray 'til they're shiny, and it's all a dance and a weave and a running River.

She'll dance that way, too, some time.  Time is, time was, time may be....

Or maybe she'll just lie about it, like the stars do.

Notes, Comments, & Commentary:

On the meaning of names:

Mal -- bad or evil.
Wash -- a cover of color, a streambed, a way of cleaning
Book -- bound pages, a set of rules, the script of a play, charging with an offense, or making a reservation
River -- running water
Zoë -- life
Jain -- River seems sure that jain is another word for janissary.  (I remember hearing this, too, but can't find a bit of proof for it; I wonder where I read it?  It feels like a foreign term, maybe back from the late Crusades?)  A janissary was initially a foreign-religion or foreign-born fighter for the Ottomans.
Vera -- (Jayne's gun!) faith or truth
Kaylee -- ceilidh, Gaelic for a party
Inara -- ray of light or heaven sent; another name for Ishtar, sacred goddess of prostitutes
Simon -- listening intently, Simon Magus from the Book