Summary: River's possible experiences during the episode The Train Job. Second in my series of retellings of Firefly.
Spoilers: The Train Job, of course. :)
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Labels and Shadows
River lies on the table in the centre of the infirmary room. She's asleep, has been most of the time since they arrived aboard Serenity, perpetually suspended in a drug induced slumber. Has it been days? Less or more? Time is hard to pin down, slipping through her fingers like sand. Slipping, slipping, everything is slipping around and away, and sifting to sand drifting on the wind. Her mind and her thoughts and the very fabric of reality, all turning to dust when she grabs for them.
Simon is worried, she knows this. Afraid for her, of her, what she has become. She glimpses it in the moments she is awake. Feels his emotions raging like a stormy sea when he looks at her. There's anger there, and sorrow, but most of all worry – maddening powerless worry.
That's why he insists on giving her the drugs, to calm her mind when it races away from her. It does that a lot, her mind, runs at a hundred miles an hour in a million different directions. He doesn't understand; it makes him worried. Makes him want to help the only way he knows how. River isn't worried; she just wishes she could make sense of the things that are going through her mind. She knows the doctors at the Academy did something to her, even if she doesn't understand it. She remembers the pain, remembers it well. She shudders in her sleep at the thought of it.
Their experiments changed her; she vaguely remembers being different before. Doesn't know how, but knows that the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions that assault her mind now weren't there before. These things came after – after the needles, the drugs and the pain. Suddenly the memories envelop her wholly. They're always there lurking in the dark recesses of her mind, but when she sleeps they come alive: pouncing on the opportunity to haunt her dreams.
There's a chair; a medical chair raised from the floor, with cords everywhere. Once it was strange and frightening – now it is familiar in its horrendousness. The needles are everywhere, sending searing pain through every inch of her nervous system. She screams, there's really nothing else to do. The doctors are there, all around her, faceless behind white masks. Her screams mean nothing to them. In the beginning she tried to reason, but however eloquently she pleaded they just ignored her. Now it is harder to speak, her mind is a muddled mess from the slow chipping away of the repeated experiments, so she just screams.
The scream carries her all the way to consciousness. Sends her tumbling off the infirmary table with flailing arms. Desperately sobbing she crawls into a corner, shying away from the ghosts of doctors still visible to her mind's eye. Then he's there, her rock, asking stupid questions as always.
"Do you know who I am?"
With effort she sifts through the shadows gathered in her mind. As she lifts her head and peeks out from between her arms she's relieved to find the face of her brother unobscured by the phantoms of the Academy.
"Simon." Of course I know who you are. My brother, the only one I can trust. My safe spot in the universe. She wants to say it all; somehow even more frustrated that she can think it but not translate it with her voice. He seems happy with her acknowledgment though, thinks it's a feat that she recognizes him. Not where the problem lies.
"Were you dreaming?" he asks.
Dreaming…yes. She is still struggling to banish the reverberations of the memory-dream. The infirmary is too much like the Academy, all white and sterile. The phantoms are too comfortable here to flee in the face of wakefulness. Unsteadily she drags herself to her feet, tries to discern the reality of the room.
"Did you dream of the Academy?" Simon inquires further. He knows where her thoughts are, but he doesn't understand the issue at hand.
"It's not relevant," she answers him, trying to get her bearings of the world around her. There's reality somewhere beneath the dreams, and memories and…other things. Her stumbling steps put her under a surgical light, the sharp white making her crane away in shock. So much like the lights in the Academy, blazing down on her. Illuminate the test subject. Make it easier for the doctors to observe. She forces the memory away, strains her mind to focus on here and now, but something's wrong about that too. Isn't what it ought to be – where it ought to be.
Simon's thoughts are still on her dream, on the very same memories she's trying to ward off. Her dismissing answer isn't enough for him; he still wants to help, thinks he can help.
"If you can talk about what happened there," he says, "and I know it's hard but, the more I know, the faster you'll get better."
Not true. Path to solution only holds if initial assessment of the problem is adequate. Simon's assessment is she's traumatized, thinks it's all in her mind. She knows better. Academy did something to her – changed her – and it can't be undone.
"This isn't home," she says quietly, the realization of what's wrong suddenly dawning on her.
"No. No, we can't go home. If we go home, they'll just send you back to the Academy. This is safer now."
Simon speaks gently, his voice barely disguising the concern his mind can't hide. River shakes her head. Tries not to cry. Not home, not home, not home… Knows he's right, trusts his assessment on this. But all she's wanted and waited for was for him to bring her home. Safe, though? Simon says they're safer here. Safer, yes, but not safe. He doesn't know what they're dealing with. River knows. Deep down somewhere she knows who'll be coming for her.
"We're on a ship." He tries with cheerful this time.
River already knows, but she is grateful. Grateful at his attempt to distract her solemn thoughts. She suspects he wants a response. The correct way to conduct conversation. She looks around, seeing through the walls, registering every detail of the vessel.
"Midbulk transport, standard radion-accelerator core, classcode 03-K64, Firefly." She rattles off the designation of the ship without hesitation. She always did excel in aviation theory.
"Well, that's somethin'." The voice is new in the conversation, somewhat more familiar in River's mind. It's impressed as well. For a moment they regard each other, River and the contradiction, like cats sizing each other up. His mind is difficult, complicated, hard to read and make sense of. He sweeps by her brother without paying any mind to the doctor's apprehensive stance.
"I can't even remember all that," he comments off-handedly, while proceeding to the sink to wash his bruised knuckles.
"Need a weave on that?" Simon asks.
"It's nothin'."
"I expect there's someone's face feels differently."
"Well, they tell ya 'never hit a man with a closed fist', but it is on occasion hilarious."
"I suppose so."
River hears their conversation at the edge of her mind, her attention veering back to them at the hushed whisper of Simons fear.
"So the, ah, the fight didn't…" He shifts his eyes to River and she can feel his anxiety echoing into her own blood. "...draw any, umm, any attention."
The contradiction, Mal – not a correct designation – lifts his eyes from the towel drying his hands.
"No Feds," he assures with a quick smile. "Just an honest brawl between folks. Ain't none of us wanted the Alliance on us, Doctor, that's why you're here."
"I thought I was here because you needed a medic." If she'd been able to focus on Simon's comment it might have amused River. He can be such a brat at times.
"Well, not today," Mal states cheerfully and whisks out the door. River stares after him, the thoughts of his mind jumbling with her own. Almost as hard to pin down as time.
"Mal. Bad. In the Latin."
She tries to explain the contradiction's inadequate label to her brother, but he doesn't understand. Thinks she means the captain is bad, but she doesn't. That's Simon's opinion, not mine, not River's. She has seen the core of Mal, the captain, the contradiction, and he is nothing as simple as bad.
Simon motions for her to come, and she knows what he wants. Has his tools laid out. Silver tray of instruments, just like the doctors in the Academy. River can feel the memory of them digging around in her brain. Feels the pain and knows that's how they changed her, how they made her what she is now – whatever she is. A doctor's tools have made her wrong, but a doctor's tools can't fix it. But they're all the tools Simon has; his needles and his drugs.
River's sick of the drugs; they can merely dull the edge of her racing mind. Can't cure, can't fix what's wrong. Simon doesn't understand. Why can't he understand? Why can't she explain? The words slip away unspoken. Sifting through her fingers, her mind, like water trickling away, sand drifting on the wind, impossible to grasp.
Her frustration erupts like a volcano. She grabs the tray of medical instruments and flips it violently into the air. Scalpels and clamps fly and land in a satisfying clinkety-clankety mess. And Simon is there. Clutches her shoulders and gently steers her away. Taking care of her, always trying to take care of her. He's floundering for a way to calm her down, but her hundred miles an hour mind has already strayed from the frustration.
It sails away through the ship as she lets her body be seated so Simon can clean up her mess. She follows Mal as he searches for Kaylee, hunts for the sunbeam. The thought makes her giggle. Tries to catch the sunlight to pin it down. River knows where she is. But she's not telling. She giggles again, makes her brother look at her and smile. Relief washes over his face because for a moment she looks almost like the little sister he once knew.
As she drifts before Mal into the flower's shuttle, just like him without knocking, she catches the edges of the women's conversation. Can't hear the words, too much noise in her head, but she knows what they're talking about. She knows because there is no escaping the force of light erupting from the sunbeam at the mere mention of her brother's name.
Mal bumbles in, interrupting the girly time. Making jokes that make almost as little sense as the buzzing humbug noise in River's head. What are space monkeys? Is there a genetic resemblance to planet-bound primates or simply a phonological concurrence? The questions are overcome by the calm raging of emotions in the shuttle. The flower's poise never fails, nor the captain's smirk, but River sees through them both. Sees the truth of Mal's concern before he voices it and the gratefulness in Inara even as she laughs the gesture away. Lies on top, truths beneath. Dancing, dancing around each other but never daring to touch. The dance is unfamiliar to River, the duplicity confusing. With an effort she recalls her mind, retreats to the familiarity of the infirmary and the soothing safety of her brother, as they sail through the black toward something that puts the sharp tinge of fear even into Mal.
Its shadow encroaches on River's mind like a cloud blacking out the sun, followed by a chill wind that rocks the relatively steady ground she has next to Simon. There's an evil out there beyond the hull of Serenity, a bitter dried up mind without the gentle glimmer of empathy. River shies away from it, tries to hide from its familiar cold calculation. The mind out there is a lot like the minds of the doctors at the Academy, too much for her to know how to deal with it. It likes to watch the pain, just like they did. To inflict it even more so. Poke the monkey, watch her dance. Maybe I am the space monkey. Unpredictable, dangerous, makes a mess.
She crawls up in a ball to protect herself, close her eyes and ears to block out the evil. She loses grasp of time as she waits for the boat to sail away from it again. When it finally sifts away into the soothing emptiness of the black she draws a sigh of relief. Opens her eyes to meet the worry in Simon's gaze. He is relieved too when she smiles, and she even more so that she managed the simple communication. He says it's time to sleep, time for medicine.
"No," River objects. "Can sleep like a normal girl."
Simon regards her, his heart swayed by the frustrated tears welling up in her eyes that just a moment ago were filled with joy.
"Okay," he consents and gently leads her to her room. Tucks her in with a kiss on the forehead and sits by her side until she falls asleep.