*************************** Kassandra Part 1/1 By Philomel **********************************

PLEASE do not archive, print, or post anywhere without permission—please e-mail me and ask first. (I just like to know. Thanks.).

Disclaimer: These characters and this universe are not mine, I didn't create them, and their owners still own them. I'm just borrowing.

Summary: Big plot stuff here! But without cows. There shall be cows, but not in this fic. No monkeys either. Okay, I lied. There is no plot, and not even anything resembling plot-stuff. Just a quick vignette—no smut, no spoilers, and no cows. Originally written for the Firefly Friday fic challenge. (topic: "Trust.")

Flowers, chocolate, and a thousand thanks, as always, to Sarahetc. for shiny beta.

Feedback Supplication: If you have any comments, positive or negative, I'd be more than grateful to hear them.

Thanks for reading.

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There is a buzzing in my ears and through my toes. The air hums with it, and spins a counter-melody, and it echoes in my brain. The harmony is discordant, in minor sevenths, and it's all falling and laughing, like dust mites playing in the sun.

There was a piano in our house, many years ago, a baby grand in the traditional style of Earth-that-was, and I would play and play and play in the warm sunshine streaming through the picture window in the music room.

It has been seven months, four weeks, 66 days, and 11 minutes since I crawled out of the box into Simon's arms.

My mind trickles and ebbs and flows and adapts to all the chemical compounds Simon likes to experiment with. But right now, it is quiet. So quiet, I can hear the stars. I breathe deeply, the air refined and filtered in a 20% oxygen mix, and feel the life flow through me.

There was a time, I sat on my father's lap, and he read to me. The tales all began at the beginning, and they started with, "Once upon a time."

But I'm starting in the middle again, and I'm not supposed to. Time is linear. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Or so I was told. That's what they say. They say. I was young and pretty and gifted, once, and my family loved me and I loved myself. There was nothing I could not do, no dream I did not dare. I was safe and happy and protected and we were rich and respected and I had everything I ever wanted. No one could hurt us. No one could try. Simon tells me stories.

I remember, sometimes, but I am not sure what is real and what is imagined and nothing is where it is supposed to be. I need to go back. Back to the beginning. Back to the end. Back to where I'm supposed to go.

I loved my father, and he called me his princess, like in the stories, the stories he told. He told me he'd give me anything I wanted, anything I asked. And he did. But what I wanted and what I asked for were not the same things, and he didn't care. He didn't want to care, didn't want to know. Simon tells me. I trusted him, I trusted them, but it all became covered by the pain and the screaming and the little little needles in white boxes carried in blue hands.

The stars wink at me through the viewscreen as we pass by. "Who can you trust now?" they ask, "Who can you believe?" And their voices are mocking and their giggles are cruel, like the pretty girls with shiny blonde hair at school. Kaylee has hair like that.

The stars keep laughing at me. "Tell. Tell."

"Simon," I say, desperately, "I trust Simon." But they laugh at me, because they know I am lying.

There is only before, and after, and I can't tell what happened before because it doesn't matter now, because now is after and nothing is true anymore. Time is a River.

I'm not supposed to be on the bridge.

The Captain would be angry, if he knew. "The Captain," the stars twinkle, "the Captain, the Captain, the Captain. Mal. Do you trust Mal?"

I think about this. Mal. Zoe trusts Mal, and Zoe is calm. I trust in her calm, because it is empty. But Mal is neither calm nor empty. Do I trust Mal?

I cannot. Because there is something wrong with the Captain, something everyone knows but no one can see. He is missing something, something never spoken, but screamed out, all the time. He is screaming, and it is very, very noisy whenever he is around. He is not restful. I don't trust him, and he is scared of me. I don't know if he is right. Because sometimes, sometimes I am scared of me too, when I remember to be frightened. Simon, he is frightened, all the time: for me, of me, because of me. All the time, but he pretends, and he lies, and his lie is there for everyone to see. Promises safety. He is not honest. But no one is, here. Only Wash. Wash is honest, and it confuses him because no one else is. But even Wash is not honest all the time, except in the ways that matter.

"Where am I?" they will ask. "Everywhere," I could answer, and everywhere is where I want to go. They all want to go somewhere, be somewhere, but no one knows where they want to go. Because everywhere and somewhere is nowhere at all. How can I tell them this, so they will understand? Because they will never understand. I don't understand. It is so simple, and impossible to explain.

They're looking for me, down below. They're looking for me, and they think I am lost. But they also think I can be found.

They whisper their truths to me, over and over and over, and no power in the 'verse can stop me, and they all know the answers to the questions the stars ask. They know, before they tell me, before they lie to each other aloud.

No one trusts me. No one believes.

Because the truth is what scares us most of all.

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