Disclaimer: The people belong to Joss Whedon. The music belongs to Fred Small. I merely borrowed them to get this plot to stop nagging me to be written.

A/N: This is my first Firefly fic, and a songfic to boot. I don’t usually like songfics, but I happened to be listening to Fred Small and thinking about Firefly, and got smacked upside the head by a plot idea. The song in question is I Will Stand Fast, from the album of the same name.

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It was either very late or very early; Simon couldn’t tell which. For once it hadn’t been River screaming that woke him, but a thin thread of music that wafted down from somewhere forward, probably the galley. That was usually where anyone who couldn’t sleep went, for tea or peace and quiet or whatever need had kept them awake. But usually, there was no music involved.

Ever since Jubal Early had appeared in the middle of Serenity’s night, Simon had been wary of anything unusual waking him up. He had taken to keeping one of the kitchen knives within reach when he slept, just in case. Picking up the knife, he opened his door just enough to see that River’s door was shut, and then slid his own aside and stepped out into the corridor to follow the music.

Kaylee had gotten the old music player as a freebie with a load of gently-used circuit boards and miscellaneous other parts the last time she had gone scrap-hunting. The player was a tiny little thing, like the one Tracey had recorded his message on. Kaylee’s hadn’t been working when she got it, but she had spliced and soldered and otherwise jury-rigged it back together, and Inara had let her use her shuttle cortex link to download music into it. Kaylee had chosen a random stream, everything from current Core favorites to music that had been old when Earth-that-was, still was. The player was Kaylee’s secret, a treat she allowed herself when she had worked hard all day to get something done and had done it, or when she had had a bad day and wanted to pamper herself a little. Tonight, she was celebrating the re-tuning of the primary grav boot, and the player had come up with a song that had been all the rage in the Core five years ago. She shut her eyes and tried to concentrate on the music and stop seeing hydraulics and wires dancing behind her eyelids.

Simon, coming down the corridor, saw Kaylee sitting at the table with her eyes closed, and smiled. He should have known, if anybody on Serenity was playing music in the middle of the night, it would be Kaylee. River would have been dancing. She had never been much for vocal music. If an instrument could be played, she had at least learned to play it, but she had never sung. Dancing had been her great joy, and apparently still was. At least she still had something of her old self. Simon sighed, feeling the beginning of his usual loop of self-recrimination coming on. Why wasn’t he good enough, why couldn’t he help her, what had he accomplished by making fugitives of them both…a guitar wove itself through his consciousness and he decided to try to concentrate on that instead. Maybe then he would get back to sleep afterward. The next song came on, and Simon forgot all about sleeping, transfixed by the fact that Kaylee’s music player was apparently reading his mind.

After the song ended, Kaylee came back from wherever it was she had been, opened her eyes, turned the player off and went off to bed, to dream about things other than ship parts. Simon slipped into the galley and sat down in Kaylee’s vacated chair, trying to process what he had just heard. It had been an old ballad from Earth-that-was.

The echoes of childhood whisper violence, Cold wind beating out of the past, Rage in your throat muffles silence, Hold on, I will stand fast. In the darkness, your guardians had left you, Cold wind beating out of the past, None to hear your cries, none to defend you, Hold on, I will stand fast.

I will stand fast, I will stand fast, You are safe in the daylight at last, Nightmare and fear, they have no power here, I will stand fast.

That was what had happened to River, in a nutshell. Their parents had left her at the Academy, left her at the mercy of those monsters who had violated her mind and taken her childhood from her, left her a prisoner in her own head. And now, even though she stood in daylight, safe for the moment, all that stood between her and that darkness was Simon, and the rest of the crew.

I will listen to the terrors that tried you, Cold wind beating out of the past, I will cradle the child that breathes inside you, Hold on, I will stand fast. Though you take the shape of a hundred ancient horrors, Cold wind beating out of the past, Though you strike at me and flee into your sorrow, Hold on, I will stand fast.

I will stand fast, I will stand fast, You are safe in the daylight at last, Nightmare and fear, they have no power here, I will stand fast.

That was true too. Simon wanted to give her back the childhood that had been stolen from her, but it was too late for that. She had a broken mind in a woman’s body. She was no longer a child, no longer an innocent; his little sister had killed men where he couldn’t. He wished she could tell him what had been done to her, so he could fix it, and bring her back. But he had tried that, and she had struck at him, and at Jayne, and had scared them all half to death with Jayne’s gun in the cargo bay…

Birds flash upon a branch in winter, Cold wind beating out of the past, Ice in the sun begins to splinter, Hold on, I will stand fast. You will walk with no fetters to bind you, Cold wind beating out of the past, All the love you have wanted will find you, Hold on, I will stand fast.

I will stand fast, I will stand fast, You are safe in the daylight at last, Nightmare and fear, they have no power here, I will stand fast, I will stand fast.

If only he had that much hope; if only he knew that he could heal her; if only it was as inevitable as spring following winter. Top three percent or not, he was still not a neurosurgeon, still doing the best he could with Serenity’s infirmary equipment and educated guesses, still wanting his lively, graceful, genius brat of a little sister back whole and sane.

Well, at least she had love. She had a brother’s love, and at least one friend’s in Kaylee, and if it didn’t help, it certainly didn’t hurt either. She had family, even if it wasn’t the one she was born into. And they would stand fast, all of them, between her and the darkness. Simon didn’t doubt that any more. In fact, he hadn’t even thought of it in months. It was enough of a comfort to let him go back to his bed.

“I will stand fast,” he murmured at River’s door as he stepped into his room and put the knife back within reach. The last bars of the music whispered through his head as sleep claimed him again.