She was crazy.

She knew that, knew that she would always be crazy.

She was saner, more lucid.

She could now see where she ended, and where the memories that weren’t hers began.

Now when she woke in the night from a nightmare, she didn’t need Simon and his drugs to calm herself.

Her brain didn’t work like everyone else’s.

Her thoughts were still disjointed, and her speech still confused.

She was learning to deal with the extra input her telepathy bombarded her with.

Learning to ignore it.

And learning to use it.

But mostly she was learning to live again.

Simon gave her medications still, the dosage wasn’t quite right yet.

But when it was it would help her be more herself.

She didn’t like the needles, the constant need for blood.

Wished she didn’t need the medication.

Knew that she did.

Felt the difference when she skipped it.

But it was almost right.

Flying helped her.

The responsibility, the knowledge that the crew depended on her steadied her, gave her an anchor to cling to.

But the black helped her the most.

She loved it.

Loved how she felt when she was able to talk the Captain and Simon into letting her walk in it.

So big, and empty…and silent.

In the black she could isolate and ignore each of the fires in her mind that was her family.

In the black she could feel her own edges and define where she began and ended.

It was only in atmosphere that she still had trouble isolating herself, there were so many fires burning in her mind.

So many she was blinded.

When they let her go for a walk just before they landed she could memorize her boundaries, clutch them in her mental fingers.

Then it didn’t matter if she were blinded she knew what was her.

They almost always let her walk before.

They knew it helped her.

They were going to hit atmo in an hour; Badger had a job for them.

He would try to get the better of them, as always.

She smiled as she put the helmet on, eager for the challenge ahead of them.

She turned so that Ari could see the tell-tells of her suit.

“All green Auntie Riv.”

She smiled at the little girl.

She wasn’t supposed to have favorites, but she did.

Both little girls looked just like their Mama, but Ari had Wash’s laughing eyes, and his happy spirit.

“Auntie Riv, what do you do out there?”

She turned away from the ladder looked down at the little girl, seeing the serious expression she, and her father before her so seldom wore, she answered,

“Listen to the Song in the Silence.”

Ari’s face scrunched up, she didn’t understand, but she knew that didn’t mean it wasn’t real.

She like Wash before her was willing to accept that it was real to River.

Ari watched her climb up the ladder and enter the lock.

Once outside she lay against the hull staring unseeingly out into the black.

In a few years she would not need to seek the void of space to achieve this silence.

Wash had given her a better refuge than this; Ari would soon be able to give her the same refuge.

Maybe even better.

But she was in no hurry, for now she was content to listen to her heart sing in the silence.