Either the ship was losing atmosphere at a rate that would turn it into a death trap in a matter of minutes, or the cold she was suffering from had plugged up her nose to such an extent that breathing through it had become a problem.

River couldn’t be sure. Insufficient data.

She opened her mouth, and airflow recommenced.

She was hot. Her coat opened up as buttons moved through well-matched buttonholes, and it slid off her to the ground as she stretched out her arms behind her and leant backwards. Still hot. Her sweater was Angora wool. From goats. Not sheep. It went over her head, but there her arms got stuck in the sleeves.

Meanwhile, her feet kept going one in front of the other, carrying her where she was going, a complex system of muscular tension, balance and a connection to the deck beneath her boots that would paradoxically, inexorably fall apart if too much thought was applied to it.

“River? Child, are you all right?” She could hear the voice, but she could not see the man. The voice was serene, reassuring. It was the preacher. Book. Bible. More than he seemed. Quiet inside. Quiet, but warm.

“I’m fine. I’m stuck in superfluous garments.” He should have been able to see that. It was obvious, and he was not the one with the sweater over his eyes.

“Ha! Indeed. Well, let me give you hand with that.” Strong hands began to untangle the sweater. But he was doing it the wrong way! He was putting it back on her, not taking it off at all. She resisted.

“You should probably keep this on, River,” he said. “You have quite the cold. I could hear you coughing from my bunk last night.”

Her head plopped back out into the light again, the Angora-darkness receding as fast as sleep came after the needle. She shook her head. “My hair is a mess.”

It really was, half of the long strands still caught under the collar of her sweater, the rest curled over her face and on top of her head. Shepherd Book’s face was in front of her, smiling fatherly. *Her* father hadn’t come for her, and she’d waited and waited…

“How can I *have* a cold and *be* warm? It makes no sense.”

Shepherd Book was taken aback for a second, but he never lost his smile. “Ah, there are a great many things in the ’verse that make no sense at first glance. And yet, there they are. Warm clothes will help you get better.”

River started to take off the sweater again. “You brother would want you to keep it on,” the shepherd said.

“Simon?” Simon *had* come for her. He had and he’d taken her away from the needles and the tests and… Simon had needles and tests too, but he was her brother and he loved her and that made it not so bad as the other needles and tests, didn’t it?

“River? Do you understand me?”

She blinked, surprised to find Shepherd Book still standing there, while she had been off to another place entirely.

“I’m not to take any clothes off even though they are far too hot,” she said. “I understand.”

Raising an eyebrow, the shepherd hesitated. “Well, that’s… good… That’s good.”

“River? River are you there?”

The muscles in her cheeks pulling up the corners of her mouth into a broad smile, River turned around. “Simon!”

Simon’s anxiousness flooded into her, but it wasn’t necessary! River was fine. A moment later, her brother came into view, carrying her discarded coat. He must have followed it to her like a trail of a single breadcrumb. Brother: a male child of identical parentage. The familial bond, though, River recognized, was not to do with deoxyribose nucleic acids. The molecule of heredity was of no consequence. Family was built out of a shared set of memories, ranging back to one’s earliest cognizant moments.

River’s first memory was of her mother. Peek-a-boo. She hid, and then showed herself again. River had found it frightening and exciting at once. Simon first showed up in her third memory. He was holding her up, his little-boy hands cupped by the larger ones of their mother, who did not want to relinquish the baby to her eager but young sibling just yet. His face was slack with a happy amazement as he watched her. She hadn’t always been able to remember that. They’d made it easier to look back this sharply.

But at the same time, they’d made it so much harder, covering up all the happy memories of family and love with tests and pain and needles and bad thoughts and blue hands and taking away girl-River and putting other-River in her place.

Tears welled up in her eyes the same as the memories of the academy welled up inside her, muddying her sight of what she really wanted to see. Sobbing, River threw her arms around her brother, and buried her face in his shoulder. “Simon… they…they took me away… and they covered up the hugs and, and…”

Through her own words, she could hear Simon whisper comforting nothings. “Hush. It’s all right, *mei-mei*. It’s all going to be all right now. I’m here.” She felt him stroking her hair. Those were only good memories. They never did that at the academy.

“Oh my,” Shepherd Book said, clearly surprised by her pain. “She’s particularly capricious today, isn’t she?”

“We’re trying out new medication,” Simon explained. “It’s… not working as well as it should yet.”

“I imagine that it’s not helping that she has as bad a cold as she does.”

Simon sighed. “No it is not. We can’t get off this frozen piece of go-se moon soon enough for me. The captain is crazy to keep us parked here for so long.”

“Well, to be fair, your sister *did* wander out into the snow barefoot—some might say that she has only herself to thank for being sick. Not that I’m implying she deserves to suffer any more than she already has, of course.”

“I’d hope not,” Simon replied, sounding like he *had* heard that implication.

River stopped crying. She let go of her brother’s neck and wiped her nose with the sleeve of her sweater.

“River?”

With a trembling smile, she said, “Simon. I’m all right now.”

Not taking his concerned eyes off of his sister, Simon searched through all of his pockets and finally, from the last one, came up with a handkerchief. He held it out to River. “Here,” he said, “blow your nose, *mei-mei*.”

River leaned forward until her nose was in the handkerchief in Simon’s hand, and then she breathed in through her mouth and blew her nose as hard as she could. As she straightened up, she smiled proudly. Airflow through her nose had resumed at almost 50%. She turned her smile to Simon, but he was looking at the wad of handkerchief in his hand with a look on his face that she’d first seen when she was six and she had deleted his Biology term paper and both of his back-ups of it and written him a new one because his was only worth a B Minus. Shepherd Book was laughing quietly, although he tried to hide it behind his fist. Well. She’d only done as Simon had asked her to.

“Thank you?” she offered. While Simon continued to stare at his hand, River took her coat from him and put it back on even despite the fact that it was still too hot. Then she walked on. She realized she was on her way to the cargo hold.

“River? Where are you going?” Simon called after her.

She gave him a sarcastic look over her shoulder. Wasn’t that obvious? “I’m following my feet, you silly! Feet know where to go much better than hands do.” Her big brother could be such a boob.

“Just… just promise me you won’t go outside again, all right?”

He looked so powerless and concerned that she just wanted to go back to him and hug him and tell him that everything was all right. She didn’t, though. Had to follow her feet. Instead, she offered him the best that she could. “I promise! I won’t leave the ship unless someone takes me.”

And she wouldn’t. She would never break a promise to her brother. He’d come and gotten her out and made her safe when no one else had, and she loved him.

(Continued in weekly new chapters (for as long as I can keep up the pace) at http://www.BattleOfSerenity.tk )