River stared at the ceiling, feeling the buzz of this ship around her. It was stronger when the ship was quiet. It felt like hunger. That’s how she would have explained it if anyone had asked her. It was easier to ignore while she was doing something else, but when she was alone at night, it all came up in her head, gnawing at the corners of her brain. Making it hard to think her own thoughts and feel her own feelings.

Hard to ignore, then.

She was getting to where she could match feelings with people. It was hard when she had first gotten on the ship, but now she had gotten to know the shapes of everyone’s minds. No, “shapes” was the wrong word. But they weren’t colors, either. Or tastes. Sounds. But they were that, too.

Inara’s thoughts were soft. Rounded. A deep, rich red that smelled like heady incense and tasted like honey. River liked her thoughts. They felt warm. Right now she was trying to sleep. Trying not to think of where she should be or what she should do. Trying not to think about the Captain, who was trying not to think about her.

His thoughts were colder than Inara’s. They were brown and dusty and smelled like smoke. They tasted almost bitter. Earthy. Sustaining.

River didn’t like to stay on Zoe’s thoughts very long. She tried to push them aside. They’d lost their flavor since Wash never came back. They’d lost that hint of green. That smell of hay. They were gray, now. Quiet. She was sitting in a chair in the bunk they used to share. She refused to sleep in the bed without him. She refused to sleep.

River missed him. She missed what he had made Zoe.

River missed Zoe, too.

And she missed Shepherd Book. There were still pieces of him around the ship. He’d had a bigger influence on the Captain than he would probably ever admit. She missed his thoughts. Brown, like Mal’s. But darker. Richer. More complete. They sounded like music and poetry. There were dark corners. Locked corners that even River never caught a glimpse of.

Kaylee’s thoughts were wide open and loud. Soft and thick as a combed wool. They were as warm as Inara’s. Differently warm, though. They were warm like a spot of sunlight on the floor. Golden and glowing. Summer and fresh apples.

There was more Simon in her now.

Simon’s thoughts were familiar. Cool. Blue. Sleek. His thoughts smelled like water—fresh water and the soap that the maid used to use on their underwear. There was Kaylee inside of him, too, shining off of the sleek surfaces and turning silver into gold. Warming what River knew she had turned cold.

They were in Kaylee’s bunk tonight. And they were happy. Imagining forever and now and everything in between.

River turned on to her side.

Jayne was asleep. Even while he was sleeping, though, his thoughts were loud. Plain. Louder even than Kaylee’s, and warm like alcohol. They smelled musky. Heavy. They were dark and velvety and River couldn’t help but curl up in them sometimes.

Then she had caught that thought of his that morning. It was warmer than usual. Hot. And there was white against the black.

Her arm. Her leg. Her neck.

Broken images, but she got the sense of what he was thinking.

It scared her.

It scared her to have that big, loud mind thinking about her in a way that didn’t involve getting her off the ship. And it scared her to see a flash of herself standing shin-deep in them, with blood dripping from the weapons in her hands.

She didn’t remember that. Not the way he did.

A flash of pain and red seared across her mind suddenly and she heard a scream. Not heard. Felt.

Jayne was having nightmares again.

Worse than usual.

She caught a split-second image of a face. One of their faces, torn and bloody and hardly a face.

Sweat had come suddenly to her palms and her forehead. She could feel her heart slamming in her chest, infinitely faster than a rabbit’s.

Calm down, Jayne. Calm down.

She groped for Kaylee. For Simon. For someone familiar to concentrate on.

Another scream. A slash of pain in her shoulder. Faces. More faces. More screaming.

STOP!! She was shaking, pushing feebly against this nightmare she was sharing. She felt bile rising in her throat and sat up, swinging her legs over the side of her bed, putting her sweat-slick feet on the humming floor of Serenity.

Serenity. Serene. Calm. She tried to take deep breaths, but she could hardly remember how.

She had no idea how much time had passed before she found herself stumbling down the hallway. She reeled against a wave of nausea—another image—and groped down the hall. The hatch to Jayne’s bunk was unlocked. She could hardly grip the bars of the ladder—could hardly see them.

Another image. A woman. Jayne’s mother. They had been there.

River slid off of the bottom rung and fell to her knees, shaking and clutching her stomach.

Wake up. She was pleading. Feeble. Please wake up.

She didn’t know if she was talking to Jayne or to that image of his mother.

She crawled across the floor. He wasn’t moving. His dream was too deep for him to be moving. Deep and suffocating.

“Jayne.” Her voice was weak. Too weak to reach him under all that blood.

She pulled herself up on her knees and reached out a trembling hand—too pale to be hers—to touch his shoulder.

He jerked awake with a gasp. “Tian sha de e mo! ”

River withdrew her hand as he reached for a gun. She was so relieved to have the nightmare gone that she hardly noticed he was pointing it at her.

*** Jayne was shaking. Sweating so badly he could hardly grip the gun.

River slowly stood up and smiled. “We were having a bad dream.”

Jayne blinked at her—quickly trying to clear his eyes so he could see her straight.

“What?”

River looked at the gun. Jayne lowered it slowly, his heart still pounding in his chest.

“What the gorram hell are you doing in my bunk?”

“We were having a nightmare. I had to find you or we would have drowned.” River stood still, looking down at him, her pale skin almost glowing in the faint light.

Jayne knew he had had a nightmare. It was gettin’ to be that he had one every night. Or maybe they just stuck with him so long that it just felt like they were every night.

He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his free hand. An unwilled image of his mother… his mother all…

His eyes snapped open and he found River sitting on the bed next to him. He moved back so quickly that he scraped his back against his guns.

“Git off my bed! What are you thinkin’ about, you moonbrained-“

“Don’t think about it anymore.” Her voice was soft. “Please.”

Think about what? He thought suddenly about seeing her standing by him this morning, just after he had been thinking about—

“No. Your mother. Them. Don’t think about it anymore. Let it go. Like dust. Keep the wind at your back.” She held her hand up, palm open in front of her face, and blew across it. She smiled again.

She was pretty when she smiled.

“River?”

Jayne’s eyes widened as he looked past River toward the open hatch to his bunk. The doc was up there.

“River, where are you?”

And sounding frantic.

River turned away, following Jayne’s gaze.

“River?”

“Simon!” She jumped up, sounding downright joyful.

Jayne should have shot her.

There was a pause, then the sound of running footsteps. The doc dropped into the room before Jayne even had time to figure out where his pants were.

“River!” He rushed over to her, grabbing her shoulders. Moonbrained girl threw her arms around him like it was a hug. The doc hugged her back, glaring at Jayne over her shoulder, then pulled away to look into her face.

“Are you alright?”

River looked back at Jayne.

Jayne really should have shot her. Ruttin’ hell. Don’t look at me. He pulled his blanket up. Made him feel womanish. I ain’t got nothin’ to do with this, girlie. Don’t you make him think I did, or Mal will have me spaced before you can say “crazy-ass trouble maker.”

“Yes. We’re alright.”

“We?” Jayne jerked forward, hardly noticing how the blanket fell around his waist.

The doc noticed. So had River, who was looking at the blanket area with her head tipped to the side. The doc grabbed River and turned her away, his eyes shootin’ daggers at Jayne.

Ai ya.

“Ain’t no ruttin’ ‘we’, doc.” Jayne fumbled as he pulled the blanket back up. “I didn’t… She…

“Gorram girl came down here herself!”

“River?” The doc shifted to look at River, whose back was still to Jayne. “River, are you okay?”

“Damn right, she is!”

The doc turned his darts on Jayne for a minute, then looked back to River.

“River?”

River nodded.

“Are you sick?”

River shook her head. “Not anymore.”

Another sharp look from the doc.

There was something wrong about being threatened with getting spaced when he weren’t wearing no pants. Why couldn’t the gorram girl just say it clear. She came into his room while he was sleeping and started babblin’ about drowning and dust and…

The way she was talkin’ and the way she kept looking at him made it sound like he had been doin’ somethin’ creepified to her.

River turned her head to look at Jayne. Hair was falling across her eyes. Black on white.

“I’m sorry.”

She turned back to the doc, who was still glaring at Jayne. Jayne almost wondered if the doc was gonna hit him.

It was a pretty amusing thought. Would’ve made him smile in lighter circumstances.

“I’m alright. Really.”

She took the doc’s hand and started pulling him toward the ladder on the wall.

The doc finally took his eyes off of Jayne and followed her.

Jayne sat back as the hatch closed. He folded his hands behind his head, stretching his legs out, trying to relax.

Gorram girl worried him.

She didn’t have no excuse to be comin’ into his bunk in the middle of the night. He didn’t lock the hatch, on account of maybe needin’ to get out quick-like. He didn’t want to lock the hatch, neither.

Why had she shown up then?

He closed his eyes, then reopened them with a jolt when he started nightmarin’ again.

He shifted, rolling onto his side, tucking his arms around himself. Then he closed his eyes again. Conjured up somethin’ pretty to think about.

River. Dancing. Smiling. The girl moved like wheat.

He could almost hear her laugh before he fell asleep.

***

“You’re really okay?” Simon was worried.

River turned and smiled at him. She nodded.

“What were you doing in there?”

She shrugged. She didn’t know any more words to explain it. “I needed to help.”

Simon was silent for the rest of the way back to their rooms. But she could feel his worry. She felt it, and wondered about it, and couldn’t blame him.

She was worried, too.

Simon reached around her and slid the door to her bunk open for her.

Kaylee was on her hands and knees, wiping the floor. She stood. Pulled River into a hug that jarred her, and put a hand on her forehead. “Are you sick?”

River thought about it. Shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“We were awful worried about you.” Kaylee pulled River over to the bed and sat her down, then sat next to her, fussing over her hand. “We just looked in to check on you. Make sure you was sleepin’ okay. And you weren’t here, and…” She gestured vaguely at the spot on the floor that she had been cleaning.

Simon was taking her pulse.

River looked at him curiously.

“Do you remember getting sick?” He dropped her hand and sat on the other side of her.

River sandwich.

River narrowed her eyes at him. “Sick?”

She looked at the spot on the floor. Remembered doubling over as she sat on the edge of her bed.

“Oh.”

“You’re bleedin’!” Kaylee’s voice was shrill.

River stared at her as Simon wheeled around her, searching every inch of her for wounds.

“Bleeding?”

“Your knees.” Simon was crouching in front of her. River shifted her eyes over to him as he gently lifted the edge of her skirt.

He looked up at her. “Did you fall?”

She was dancing.

River looked down at him. She chewed on her lower lip.

“It’s only a matter of time.”