Author's notes: Ryan Adams made me do it again. (Wild Flowers, #12 on Gold) I'm going back to my Buffy obsession once I'm done typing this...I swear! Also, feedback (kaylee@kikiroxxorz.com) is appreciated, esp. since this is my first time doing a full first-person River fic.

Takes place any time before the BDM.

~*~

Two words. Five syllables. Unspoken, buried away under unfailing good cheer and a facade of happiness. I pick the colours I know she likes best, bright blue and near-edible purple. Yellow like sunshine. Like her. There are forty-seven, a rainbow in a wicker basket. Forty-seven reasons to smile, a real smile, bright, beautiful, strange, childlike, angel mechanic's smile. Not a multiple of two or five. Forty-seven reasons to smile.

She cries softly into her pillow when she's sure no one can hear her, pours out the rhythm of her anguish in silent, agonizing tears. In my hands, I hold tangible happiness, preserved delicately in aqueous crystal. The only thing that could take the hurt away--her hurt, my hurt--in my hands, seeping in through my pores to find its way into a space beyond the thump thump thump of the fortress of my existence. Into my heart.

She brightens before she can see them, her other senses recognizing them. "Hiya." She feels a sudden, overwhelming desire to make herself pretty. I hold her down, gentle interference. Kiss her wrist gently, lean my head against hers. "We can be lonely together."

Five words. Eight syllables. One kiss. Forty-eight wild flowers. An empire of pain, crumbled to dust.