It was a hill. One that made her want to sit down and weep. It loomed above her casting a shadow over everything. Everything she had left.
River constantly wanted to get off it. She'd climb a little way before collapsing back in exhaustion. But she couldn't just say no. she couldn't just walk back down and get a lift upward. It was her life; River's despair incarnated as it taunted her with the knowledge that she would not get herself back if she did not conquer it. She kept trying, flooded with the determination that she would not lose herself to them ever again. Yet she tired constantly, unwilling but falling back no matter how hard she scrambled to keep her grip on the slippery slope. It turned to ice beneath her feet, numbing her extremities and abolishing any chance she had at holding onto that thin layer of ground she had gained.
She broke down on occasion, clinging to Simon; her safety net, in her anguish. She curled in his arms like a child, yelling at him that she couldn't, wouldn't do it any more. She couldn't keep climbing. Every part of her ached but it wasn't getting any better. She'd tried; oh god how she'd tried to be herself, to stop the voices and the impulses and the layers of foreign things that blotted her mind. The hill was still there. What more could she do? How much of her was really worth this? Why wasn't there a quick fix; she'd done all she could and begged the heavens constantly for help, appealing to whatever presence might exist in the universe to release her from what the alliance had trapped her in. Just let me stop, she'd think, just let me melt away and tell them they won. She longed for the privilege to give up.
River needed these occasions. She never meant what she said or thought. She needed these moments to remember that this was her life and all of who she was. And the other option, giving up… would make her lose herself forever. It would never give her the opportunity to grow and relearn the meanings behind life. She couldn't give up. It was climb the hill or melt into blackness. She took these moments of weakness to realise exactly how human she still was. River would play it all around in her mind. As long as she broke down; listed all the reasons for giving up and realised that they did not outweigh the reasons for her to live, which were infinitesimal, then she could continue. She could climb that hill, hand in hand with the people who surrounded her and cared if she lived as a person.