Author: Rawles {rawles[dot]marie[at]gmail[dot]com} Type: Gen Genre: Drama Characters: River. Simon. Author’s Notes: For ff_friday challenge. Subject: desire. This is a rare piece in that many months after I wrote it I still like it. It took about 15 minutes total and I never edited it much, so I'm not sure what that indicates. Also, I like the title, because I like the word "cecity".

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"It’s pointless.”

Simon looked up to meet his sister’s eyes. His grip on the hypodermic he was filling tightened.

“Shenme?”

“Nothing,” she responded, turning away and proffering her arm pointedly.

“It’s not nothing. You just said ‘it’s pointless’, River.”

“Administer medications, Doctor. She wants to go dance,” She stared idly at the ceiling and raised her arm a bit more.

For a moment, Simon didn’t know whether to be happy that River was acting more like her old self or annoyed that the personality trait she’d decided to recall today was brattiness. He folded his arms across his chest. He’d more or less decided on annoyance.

“River,” he said, his voice serious, “Tell me what you mean.”

River pulled her eyes from the ceiling to meet his. She crossed her own arms, mimicking him the way she used to when they were children and she thought he was acting too much like an adult.

“Why? You wouldn’t listen. You don’t want to hear.”

“Try me.”

Her brow furrowed. “You’re doing it all wrong. Trying to fix her backwards. Because you don’t want to do it right.”

Simon stepped back, wounded by the accusation. He was doing everything he possibly could to try and make River better. He had thought that she understood that. Apparently, he had been very wrong.

River frowned at the expression on his face. Tears brimmed in her eyes. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him. Just make him see. She hated when she couldn’t control herself. Couldn’t stop herself from speaking or feeling or thinking things that she shouldn’t. The tears began to fall as she admitted to herself that she truly had wanted to say the words that had just escaped her lips.

Simon was at her side in an instant. He whispered comforting nothings into her hair as she sobbed quietly, his own pain forgotten. River bit her lip. Not forgotten, ignored. Everything that he was was always ignored in her favor. She pushed away from him, not able to handle his guilt so near to her own. He took her face into his hands and met her eyes.

“River, I’m doing everything I can, trying everything I can think of to-to understand what they did to you- what they were trying to do- so that I can fix it. I want you to be better, meimei.” He closed his eyes holding back his own tears. “I’m sorry that I’m not better at it... I’m sorry.”

“They opened up my eyes and they made the scales fall away so I could see,” she explained. “I see everything. But you make me blind. Artificial scales. Under the chemical haze I can function and I can almost be what I was, but it always ends.”

“I’m sorry...” he repeated like a broken toy. His voice box was stuck on one phrase. There were supposed to be others. The other words were missing, stolen away.

“You don’t understand!” She needed him to understand. “You treat the symptoms, but not the disease. I’m supposed to see. It’s who I am. They didn’t finish, didn’t teach me how, didn’t tell what I was for, didn’t-didn’t want them to. But still, I’m meant to see.” She smiled sadly. “But you won’t show me.”

His normally clear blue eyes were clouded with anguish. “What do you want from me, River?”

“I want you to look at me like you did. I want to be like I was...” She held a hand to his mouth before he could apologize again. She knew he would repeat himself. He was broken. “But that will never happen,” she said firmly. “They shaped her and molded her and shoved her into the kiln. Burned and hardened. She’s different; a tool unused. Can’t get younger. Can’t go in reverse. Can’t go back.”

“Meimei...”

“What do you want, Simon? To force me back or to help me forward?”

He moved closer again and she was inundated in feeling. She felt his arms around her. She felt his devotion. She felt his heartbeat. She felt his torment. She felt his tears in her hair. She felt his guilt.

He did not answer.