They thought she was getting better. They were wrong.

For the longest time they had the idea that she was just one piece of a girl, singled apart from many. In her eyes they saw the barest fragment of what should have been, of someone on the slip of adulthood but missing that elusive edge that might somehow make her steadfast and whole. They watched her through the eyes of others, their wariness and confusion making her something almost unreal. This girl of so many pieces, for the love of her brother, and the need to shout back at the voices in her head, had stood by Miranda and shattered their enemies into a thousand pieces more. For a time, the longest time when all hours before had passed in terrible, shocking speed, seeing the blood of demons at her feet--they might well have thought her a ghost.

It was true, for a few months anyway, that she was quite well, that her lucid periods were longer and less erratic. She smiled more often, and not only with Simon, but with Mal, too. Even Jayne, though he, having known and felt the fragment where it cut the most, remained the weariest of all, never leaving that post even when she ran barefoot in Kaylee's wake through the ship, and those who watched believed that there was happiness in her voice. He remained unbelieving, but because he was Jayne they let him be.

Zoe she left alone, but they all saw how River Tam knew, held her tongue when she wanted to speak of Wash, to explain and empathise; she understood the look in Zoe's eyes and so remained mute. It was better this way, Simon assured her. Better to give space than try and quantify its meaning. He was her brother, and so she believed him, and kept her thoughts to herself, to ponder alone as she considered it proper for a girl like her to do.

A girl like her. That hadn't changed. River would always be something very nearly in duplicate, the second free digit of a pair that never quite added up.

It is easy to image that a person with the strength to kill might recover just as quickly without pain. They waited, hoping, that she would step into this and somehow fuse those jagged edges together. She was human, after all. She could love, and reason, and rationalise. As much as she made of playing the crazy witch-girl--they couldn't believe it was irreversible.

They thought she was getting better. But when the doctor was badly shot, caught in crossfire, the backlight of a petty argument that had strayed too close, she threw herself by the infirmary bed and sank back into the shell that had surrounded her once, and before. River tied herself literally to her brother's side; ignoring all who tried to calm her and make her see reason. Simon didn't move for a week, and neither did she.

Finally Mal knelt by her side, looked at Simon, the drugs flowing into him, and on the other side of the bed, to Zoe--their appointed medic--as she prepared to switch the dosage, and spoke to River gently.

"It's okay to be afraid. He's taken care of you for so long, you're thinkin' there ain't time when he hasn't--but darlin', you can't be shuttin' the world away like this. It ain't fair on him, and it ain't fair on you. You gotta let us help, 'cause I sure don't want the both of you takin' up residency in here when there's rooms of your own, wantin' to be kept." He touched the back of her head, smoothing the hair and feeling it damp under his palms. "Don't let them be empty, River. Leave us to help him."

But she didn't move. Her fingers clasped the white sleeve of Simon's shirt, one pearly button, neat on the cuff, pressed tightly to the ball of her thumb so that it left a moon-shaped mark on the skin. And Mal watched her, and thought as they all had thought before: if better never came, what in the 'verse was left for them to hope for?

So he tried again.

"River?"

Nothing. Still she leant against the bed, weight and focus entirely on her brother. Zoe adjusted the drip, letting her eyes settle on Mal. He caught this, but gave her no reply. When the fluid dripped down the line, under River's motionless hand, he placed his own over hers and lifted it aside. But she surprised him, for the expected protest did not come; she let her captain pull her away, let him touch her again where the black crown of her head shone dully with sweat. River turned from the gaze she had pinned to her brother, and as if awakened by words, she stared Mal in the eye and moved back with a jerk.

"Empty?" She blinked away tears that weren't there, her voice scraping sound over the cracked skin of her lips. Zoe looked to Mal again, this time with a frown, and again he ignored it. "Empty is your fear," River said vacantly. "It is a vessel, and while I stay in this room you cannot see it filled. You can't hear him, but he's leaving us behind."

"You don't know that," the captain said, taking his hand away. He rocked back on his heels as Zoe lifted the bandage and stared without emotion at the deep, dark wound. The strength seemed to have fled from his voice. "Doc's strong..."

River's lips moved. She shook her head, pain almost visible in relief on her face. "Are you cold?" she asked Mal. She leant down and pressed her cheek to Simon's hand. "You should be."

Her weight shifted; he felt her move, sliding away to nothing. She smiled up at Zoe.

"We speak to ghosts. When I sleep I see him and he knows you see him, too. He'll no longer be alone."

The monitor sprang into life as River Tam exhaled and lost the fragments that had held her together after Miranda. They'd thought she was getting better, but it was her brother they would lose. She stood back as they scrambled with paddles, shocks and needles, with adrenaline now void and useless.

"All better," River murmured, though no one heard. "Look!"

They did. And the girl they'd thought to be in pieces followed her own voice; she looked and looked, but she didn't speak again.