It sat in the middle of the galley table, round, tall and chocolate. This was not a protein facsimile of a cake, this was the real thing, three layer, cream in the middle, frosted on top chocolate cake. Simon and Kaylee had spent the whole morning baking it and were proud of two things. One, they had remembered that River was a Gemini, which since humans had left Earth-that-was had lost all meaning, and two River's favorite flavor was chocolate.
It was River's twentieth birthday and if not for Serenity's proximity alarm, they would probably be eating the cake at that moment. As it was, the captain was on the bridge, matching the derelict yacht's rotation, Zoe was preparing the enviro-suits, Kaylee was routing the main Atmo feed to the air lock, Simon was in his infirmary hoping there were survivors and River was at the air lock controls.
As the two ships engaged, River looked through the airlock window as she maneuvered the core guide into place. She pulled it up and cinched it in. Pushing her white hair from her eyes she pressed the Atmo activate and settled in to wait. In a few minutes the captain would be down with Zoe to search the derelict for valuables and survivors.
The girl stared at Serenity's relatively empty hold as she waited. The cold of the airlock door pressed against her back and she remembered her sweater was still hanging on the back of a chair in the galley, in front of a chocolate cake, candles waiting to be lit, plates waiting to be filled, life waiting to go on. In point of fact, River didn't like waiting. There were so many things to do, so many new things to learn. Time spent waiting was time poorly spent.
A strand of white hair fell back across her eyes and she brushed it away. At twenty she was far too young for hair with no color. She felt it made her look too ghost-like and scary, unapproachable. The young woman could color her hair, as many young women did, but it was hers and she had decided to accept it the way it was. It was who she was now. That's why River was known as the Tiger by Mal's associates. She was the White Tiger, small and quiet but dangerous. Like Serenity she was incongruous, but somehow – right.
The large open hold was dotted with a few crates here and there. Not enough to make ends meet. That was why they had interrupted their small party to pick the bones of the poor derelict yacht. She looked at the meager cargo and hoped there would be more to come.
River tried to imagine the crates as wrapped boxes, each with a bow of large ribbon holding some unexpected gift, a surprise for her to discover. She smiled. After all, it was her birthday.
'Chish – whoosh.'
River looked up confused. That was the sound of an airlock as it opened, but theirs was still closed. She quickly looked around the cargo bay. It was still empty. Mal and Zoe were on the upper deck collecting the Enviro-suites, her brother at the back of the ship and Kaylee in the engine room. She was alone. River stood and looked through the window to find the airlock on the derelict ship was open.
That is when her world went all sideways. Beyond the airlock, sitting in the middle of the yacht's cargo hold, was a young dark-haired woman. She sat cross-legged in the lotus position meditating, just as River had been moments earlier. The woman wore a silk sundress with a draped shawl, just like hers, her eye closed and black hair twisted and unkempt. River was looking at herself sitting on the yacht, but not the River of today, the River that she was. The River she used to be.
River stared, slightly open mouthed, at the apparition on the other side of the short causeway. Her head tipped slightly to one side, her white hair cascading over her shoulders. The dark haired version of herself opened her eyes and looked directly into her River's, beckoning her to come join her with a smile. River smiled back at the vision of herself and released the door lock. She opened the airlock with the same rush of air and drifted on the breeze through the now open door.
But the dark-haired girl was gone, suddenly replaced by a sharp pain to the back of her head and a sound distinctly like a smashed gourd. All went black.
Two men dressed all in black and holding automatic weapons at the ready carried River's body was back into Serenity's hold and dropped her limp form to the deck. Her white hair was stained blood red in back; a small sanguine trail dripping from her nose and mouth. The two proceeded into the ship methodically hunting the others onboard, moving with the precision of expert training, their black masked faces revealing only sharp and cold blue eyes.
They didn't speak a word, communicating almost telepathically with hand motions and head nods. Simon and Kaylee were easy, both subdued without a sound. They never saw it coming. Once they were bound and gagged, Zoe and Mal weren't that much harder. They were caught, helmets in hand and weapons unattended. Both could see there was no point in fighting this ambush. They had bit on the bait and now it was time to pay the price.
All four prisoners were dragged to the hold, bound and blindfolded. They were joined by the yacht's owner, the architect of their seizure.
RaaaaaaoooooOOOOOO – pish - tha. RaaaaaaooooOOOOOO – pish - tha.
The rhythmic rasp of the old man's concentrator invaded the normal ambient background whooshes, hums, beeps and clicks of Serenity's. The electric motors on his wheel-chair whirred as it sped by the motionless body of Serenity's former pilot.
Adelei Niska shook his head as he approached captain Reynolds. The captain was kneeling under the load control platform with his hands tied over his head, suspended from the platform's meshing grating. He pulled away the blindfold and gazed at the prisoner with a broad smile.
"And so we are meeting again Captain Reynolds." The old man greeted him. "As you can see, I have had to make some adjustments in my life."
Reynolds coughed, bleeding from the corner of his mouth. His shirt was missing, his sides were bruised and his eyes swollen. He had been pre-tenderized for the old man by his hired mercenaries. He could see River now, lay sprawled and motionless on the deck at the other end of the cargo hold behind the two former special-forces soldiers that had captured them. Her eyes were closed, her face expressionless. The bright red stain against her white mane told him that, for all his pain, Mal had gotten the better end of the deal – so far.
He looked to his left at the remainder of his crew, still blindfolded, bound and gagged in the corner, and was glad that they couldn't see River. That was by design, Mal figured. Niska was always one for dramatic impacts. He presented a man with a conflict and reveled in the response. Now Mal had to figure a way to negotiate their freedom, before they ended up like River.
He felt a twinge in his heart as he looked at the motionless girl. To say he'd grown fond of her was an understatement. It must have shown in his face.
"Don't worry Captain, I do not wish to spend long time here today. I am having Wedding shower to attend so understand if I am kill you all quickly.
"I wouldn't mind hearing more about this wedding of yours." Mal responded shakily.
The old man turned his Cerilian blade in his hand, letting the light from the overhead glint off the edges.
"Oh, this is nothing. Another sensitive one for my oldest daughter. I am never hearing end from last one. They're no good for business." He added.
"Maybe you just have to broaden your perspective a little." Mal suggested. "There is room in life for – more than just business. Let bygones be bygones. Live and let live? I'm sure he's a really nice man."
"Now you are sounding like Wife." Niska brushed it off. "Sergey, you can go plan our route to Londinium. Don't forget I am needing flowers. Dmitry, be good as to go get tools would you? It is time to play."
A bright light stirred River slowly. Her head was pounding, pulse throbbing in her temples as she laid face flat on a hard white surface. Voices echoed in the distance, beckoning her to move, pulling at her mind, wanting her to follow. She struggled to sit up. Her rubber arms ached and her feeble legs lay listlessly under her.
"It is time to play." She heard somewhere faint in her memory.
She strained her eyes to focus through slotted lids. A mist floated all around her, damp and cold. The great empty, nothingness. Dà kōngdi. River had been here before and she didn't like it here. It scared her. She wanted to go back home, back to Serenity. She needed to go back. This place of nothing wasn't where she belonged.
River struggled to her feet in a field of white, covered in a flowing white mist. She made her way slowly toward the echoing voices, shivering from the cold. She wore a long white gossamer gown that clung to her body, wet from the fog. It was clammy and uncomfortable and stuck to her like a loose skin. Far from opaque, it would have been revealing of all that was underneath, if her alabaster skin and pale pink features were not so closely matched to the thin ivory cover.
She felt thin, as thin as the gossamer that covered her, thin and transparent. Almost nonexistent. Her white hair hung limp and damp, clinging to her face and neck and shoulders. Her arms clenched to either side of her head as she staggered, as if she were literally holding it together to prevent her mind from spilling out and drifting away on the swirling mist. A line of red trickled down each forearm and dripped from her elbows, a stark contrast to the ubiquitous white all around.
The clouds churned around her, flicking like veils in the wind as she stumbled toward the muffled tones, struggling to keep herself together, struggling to stay River and not become the mist itself. Slowly the form of another girl appeared in the fog, sitting silently on the white ground, relaxing cross-legged. Her brightly colored sundress popped out in the haze like a beacon. River approached the girl warily. The other just watched her come and smiled as she became clear.
"Tiger plays the game, but she doesn't like the rules." Her dark-haired self teased.
"I need to get back." The white-haired River said. "I let them in. I didn't mean to let them in."
"No Tiger." Dark-haired River said, standing and drawing her twin swords from her back.
The dark-haired version of herself barred her way. The blades were ornate, but long and sharp. River knew them well. They were hers.
"I have to go back, Tiger, not you. You need to be here now. You need to stay here."
"But I let them in. I have to make them go away."
"It is my turn to go back. You don't belong anymore. It is my turn to control again."
"No. I have to make it right."
"You can't go back, Tiger. I won't let you."
"No!" Her head reacted with a throb to her exclamation, but she continued nonetheless. "You are me, I am River."
"You have fought me long enough. You know you can't win. I will always be part of you."
"The part that they made, the part that is bad."
"I'm the part of River they need now. You have to stay."
"But I don't want to stay, I'm not in pieces, not good and bad, I am whole."
"We will never be whole." Dark River shouted in anger.
River lashed out cutting Tiger across the chest with a swift slice of her blade. The White-haired girl staggered back, clenching her hands to her chest. Small red trickles leaked out from between her fingers as she slumped back against the emptiness behind her.
River moved in quickly, ready to strike again. But suddenly the black-haired girl stopped and gasped. A line of red traced across her own chest, just above the top of her sundress, just where she had cut Tiger. A look of shock filled her eyes.
"River plays the game, but she can't change the rules." Tiger said to her shocked self. "No, she can't."
River cried out as Tiger leapt forward and hugged her close, chest to chest, wound to wound and they bled out into each other. They collapsed together into the mist and faded into the nothingness below them.
Dmitry poked at River's body with the end of his assault rifle as he passed by, missing the almost imperceptible twitch that followed. He proceeded though the air lock and along the connection between the two craft and disappeared into the clipper. He would be back shortly with his bosses tools and the terminations would ensue. In the mean time he cut on the captain occasionally with his silver blade.
'RaaaaaaooooOOOOOO – pish – tha'
The rasp of Niska's oxygen condenser dominated all the other sounds in the hold drawing River back into the darkness of reality. The old man's voice tugged at her, pulling her the last few light years through the cold empty and into semi-consciousness. As her eyes flickered open, and the misty fog slowly disappeared, she saw her dark-haired self standing over her.
"River's back." She giggled as the apparition slowly faded.
Niska dropped the shinny blade on top of a nearby crate and quickly spun his chair around. He pulled a gun from inside his chair's pocket and aimed toward the capricious voice, catching only a glimpse of a shadow as it slipped into the corridor behind the motionless body and headed toward his ship.
"Silly old man, he plays the game, but he doesn't know the rules." Her voice echoed.
"Dmitry" The old man barked into his com unit. "You missed one. She is headed to you. Stop her." Niska looked into Mal's face with slight annoyance. "I will be back to finish our conversation Captain, it has been – enjoyable. Would be shame not to finish."
"Take your time." Mal replied sincerely, cringing with pain.
Niska powered his motorized throne across the cargo hold, again shaking his head as he passed the lifeless body at the end. He must have seen River as a missed opportunity, a chance to learn something that could not be recovered. Raising his gun to the front, he sped on through the air lock door and proceeded down the connecting corridor after the dark-haired apparition.
To Mal's surprise River stirred. She struggled slowly to her feet, using the lock control panel for support. The effort it took was evident as she teetered on the brink of collapse. She carefully entering the override codes through the fog of her light headed vertigo.
Just as the old man realized what was happening she hit the final confirmation. The airlock door shut with a 'chissh'. Niska's remains were jettisoned though the open gap between the vessels as the air rushed from his clipper, closely followed by Dmitry's. Sergey likely didn't have a chance; even with the emergency shut control enabled. Their vessel did not have the volume to afford him enough time. His heart popped and his eyes burst, falling back dead at the yacht's control console no doubt. The emergency controls merely saved the remainder of the vessel for the next scavenger to come along.
The rich yacht drifted slowly away from Serenity, propelled by the sudden expulsion of gas and material. It was now just another piece of space junk, inert floating material. Like Niska and Dmitry.
"River?" Mal coughed out her name, breaking the silence.
River turned slowly, tipped her head and looked at Mal as if he were a foreign object. Her eyes stared past him, seeming to focus on the nothing behind him.
"River – stay with me ..." He said, as he hung in place.
The bloody girl stumbled from the airlock controls and slumped against the nearest crate. She staggered from crate to crate, stopping to recover her wits at each one and struggled to refocus her fading brown eyes. With her last effort she grabbed the Cerilian blade that lay on the nearest crate and slashed Mal's bindings, then collapsed in his arms.
The bright white of the infirmary lights blanched out nearly everything from the girl's view, just like the nothing had, like 'kongdi'. Everything except for the fork heaped with moist cake and gooey chocolate frosting.
River smiled weakly and opened her mouth eagerly, as Kaylee fed the girl another bite of cake. Simon fussed over his two patients. His sister's head was wrapped in white bandages, each arm sporting its own tube, one red and one clear. Mal sat on his own bed, now covering up his bandaged ribs with a drab red shirt and eyeing his wounded pilot with a look of concerned.
"Did I miss the cake?" Zoe asked cheerfully, as she bound into the room.
"No." River croaked. "There is still plenty."
The first mate came from the upper deck and nodded to the captain as she entered, assuring him they were on the course he'd ordered.
"Me and Simon made it special, for you River." Kaylee said, somewhat sadly. "We wanted today to be a special day for you."
"Sorry, we didn't have any other present to give you." Simon added.
Mal turned to his first officer, motioning weakly to her.
"We all set?" He asked.
"All keyed and under way." Zoe replied. "Should be at Ariel in a few hours." Then she paused. "Could be some trouble there."
"Can't be helped."
"They have facilities in Persephone near as good …"
"Twice as far." Mal interrupted.
Simon nodded his agreement with the captain's decision and added another syringe of something to her IV. "Time to sleep now River." He said sweetly.
"Captain?" River mumbled in a tired whisper. "I don't think I'll sit on the bridge tonight." Then she closed her eyes.
"Don't you fret over that." The captain replied. "You just get better."
"But I am better." She whispered. "I am finally whole now."