+++

She’s not sleeping anymore.

She can tell because there’s no more yelling orders to dead soldiers. No more clenching and clutching as she intertwines with Kaylee. No more trying to learn dance steps that never come. No more screaming as her body is ripped apart by Reavers.

She can tell because things have shifted inside out, been given names and shapes. She can move and touch and hurt. This is the here and now, all the reality that life has to offer.

Her eyes are open, but she’s not awake.

---

A narrow tunnel of metal links voice to voice, thought to thought. All connected, like crimson gushing through veins and arteries, systemic circulation with a nine-chambered pump. She can feel it vibrating between her toes.

She drifts through the metal toward voices and strength.

One of the chambers opens below. Book and Kaylee are talking and thinking while Jayne keeps pushing a bar into the air and tries to do neither. There’s more room here, room for things. There’s a peace.

Her feet dance down the stairs. She passes Kaylee near the bottom, and there’s a greeting and concern as she continues toward Jayne with a curious smile.

She’s peering over the bar now, watching muscles pull and tendons strain. Striated phasic, fast twitch, her mind says. Bigger as parts but less than the whole, less than the smooth muscle underneath. All connected.

He tries to pretend she’s not there, like a passing Reaver ship.

"Shepherd-"

He’s going to ask for more weight. Her hands grasp the bar, and she pushes her feet off the metal. Don’t need no more weight. It’s too ruttin’ heavy already, but people’s watchin’. People what matter. Don’t want’em to think the clip’s empty.

"That ain’t... got nuthin’... to do with it!"

There’s suppressed laughter.

He throws the embarrassment toward her with a grunt and her feet rise higher off the floor. He’s farther, then closer, then farther. She lifts her feet over her head and balances upside down on the bar, watching his face redden. Her hands grip tighter and she can feel every twitch, every vibration. She’s part of the whole. This is a new dance.

The bar stops on his chest. His protests gurgle in his throat, and she’s pulled away. The laughter and embarrassment collapse, leaving a void that fear and anger rush in to replace.

She’s not welcome. There was a peace, but it wilted when she picked it. Can’t touch. Might stop the circulation. Time to go.

"She’s certainly a puzzle."

"Missin’ a few pieces."

---

Too many pieces, jigsaw split. Some don’t belong, and some she needs aren’t here. She can mash them together in different ways to make a hundred different nightmares. The answers are illusions.

A flash of silver beckons. Her hand knows what to do.

She cuts the pieces, cuts through the rules and the boundaries. Laughs at her skin’s conspiratorial attempt to enforce the rules with pain, laughs at the tears stinging her eyes.

Awareness brushes her senses. She’s awake; in the infirmary, tucked into a corner with a scalpel in her hand. The moment of lucidity lights her path. She’s not part of the whole. She’s broken, the disease that must be removed. Disconnected.

Her hand proves its knowledge again; there’s more laughter and another flash of awareness.

Simon’s here now. Harsh fluorescent lights bathe him, pale skin speckled ruby red. Beautiful somehow. But this isn’t his blood.

"No, River, it’s yours. And you have to stop." He’s going to enforce the rules.

No! Mustn’t touch! Her smearing feet kick her deeper into the corner as her hand raises the silver. She knows what’s to be done.

But the screaming starts. The kind from which hands and silver offer no sanctuary. Eyes close, but it can see through the darkness and it knows where she is. Palms press to ears, but it’s already inside, clawing at her skull. It wants her hand too.

It subsides.

The world is dimmer, spinning. There are more people now, gathered in a circle of fear and pity to watch her spin. She’ll dance the best she can. Pirouettes may meet with limited success.

"What the hell’s she sayin’?"

"It’s just a bad day."

No one can understand. They’re all part of the whole, but she’s alone behind the screaming. Disconnected. The disease that makes the peace wilt. Time to go.

A hand grabs her wrist and pulls the silver away. The captain is here, holding her by the shoulders.

"Ain’t nobody on this boat alone, dong ma? We’re all family here, and you’re a part of that family whether you want to be or not. Serenity’s your home same as ours."

People are crying. Warmth enfolds her.

"Nobody here is alone. Nobody."

There’s the familiar pinch of a needle, then blackness.

---

She’s not sleeping anymore.

She can tell because she hears the infirmary echo with the ghost of her scream. She can tell because of the frantic voices over the ship’s com.

"Kaylee! Are you there?"

Something’s happened. They can’t help.

But she knows ways they don’t, and so she slips into the spaces in between. Above, behind, underneath. There’s less room for things here, but enough for her. This is an old dance.

She swings and drops to a crouch on the hot metal.

Flames have swallowed the room, but there’s a path through the belly, under the smoke and over the steel. The fire can’t touch her, so it lashes at the wall in frustration, spitting and crackling and warping the air. It’s a pretty show.

She does what the frantic voices want. She presses a button, turns a dial, and the licking tendrils hiss into steam. The show’s over.

Her small hands find Kaylee’s soot-covered face. She’s not broken, just dirty. She was fixin’ somethin’… reroutin’ the fuel flow, but her mind kept wanderin’ back to River.

She coughs, and her eyes open. She’s doing pirouettes.

"River? How’d you get here?"

It’s all linked, part of the whole. All connected. Nobody here is alone.

She smiles.

---

Everyone’s here together. The shepherd asks God for something they already have.

She sits beside Jayne, and it doesn’t bother her when he thinks she’s not looking and steals one of her dinner rolls. She just threatens to kill him.

Simon’s happy because she’s eating. Kaylee’s happy because Simon is.

They take turns laughing.

---

It’s time to go to sleep.

She can tell because her body yearns to yield to her subconscious, and her will has been judged and found wanting. Also because Simon told her.

But there are fears to be faced, consequences to be dealt with. Memories are waiting there in the dark, waiting to manifest and rip into her like tiny knives. Some she claims, some claim her. There are parts that don’t fit and things she doesn’t want.

She knows she could break through it all; through the nightmares and the waking sleep and the intoxicating blur of minute to minute. She could surface and gasp for breath and clarity if she could only wake up.

It’s all right there, just out of reach. She has to wake up!

"Shh."

Simon’s here with her, and everything’s quiet again. She loves him.

"I love you too, mei mei, but it’s time to go to sleep."

She likes it better when she’s awake.

+++