I wake, and I'm drowned in screams. It takes me a moment to realise they're not in my head this time. They're coming from me.
I watch the bugs as they burrow into my flesh like the needles of the Academy; feel the familiar sting of pain as they move deeper and deeper inside me. I scream, and claw at my skin to get them out again. They can't stay inside me. I'll die.
I don't want to die.
I'm watching the blood pour down my arm as I continue clawing at the bugs. I'm sobbing and screaming and clawing, thrashing around like some crazy person.
Problem is, Simon think I am some crazy person.
He rushes over, tries to restrain me even as the Captain rushes in, white stallion forgotten as he tries to save me.
Heroic, really.
There's blood everywhere, and I can't stop screaming. Simon is standing over me with a needle, and I scream bloody murder. I didn't know I could scream harder than I'd already been screaming.
Even geniuses learn something new every day.
There's no room for reality. I see Simon, but he's like everyone else at the Academy: more willing to drug than to deal with the problem. Is he blind? There are bugs all over me, and he's trying to drug me? He lowers his hand, the syringe ready, but I kick his wrist, and he drops the drugs onto the ground with a clatter and shout of pain I can't hear over my own terror. The door flies open, Kaylee is running inside the room, closely followed by the rest of the crew. Simon's preparing another syringe, yelling at Jayne to hold me down when the Captain abruptly stands and steps away from me.
"Jayne, don't. I think I know what's wrong."
His voice strains to be heard over the screams, but I hear it. His heartbeat is the fast flowing, crashing ocean; he's scared that he's wrong. Simon shakes his head and moves in to sedate me. Jayne looks ready to help him, despite his orders, and glares at the hand the Captain holds up, trying to stop the pair from approaching me as I scream. Jayne pushes the captain aside like an unwanted doll, and he stumbles to the ground before bouncing back to his feet.
I had a ball once, tiny and hard and in some horribly bright shade of pink. It used to bounce the way the Captain just did. My father called it an heirloom from Earth That Was. Simon called it ugly. I agreed with Simon.
The Captain leaps to his feet and stands between the three of us, shielding me.
"Captain, perhaps it would be… wise… to let the doctor do his job." The look directed at the Shepard is a tango of open hostility and hatred. I want to dance along with the captain; I mirror his steps as my own even as my scratched and sore vocal chords continue their opera.
Simon moves to bypass the captain, but the gun suddenly in his face forces him to retreat. It's a dance. A beautifully stupid dance. Something folky and simple, two forward, one back, never in the middle. I want to clap my hands in enjoyment at my brother. He hates to dance, but here he is prancing with the best of them, even if his eyes seem red with hatred. Instead, I realise my screams are now hoarse choking wheezes; I've scratched my throat to pieces in my effort to warn him not to touch me.
The bugs will crawl into him if he touches me.
Zoe maintains the hold on her gun, eyeing Jayne and Simon like she's never seen them before. Kaylee and Inara step beside the Captain. Wash stands beside his wife, a small gun already in hand. Dance, Simon, dance like you mean it.
"We need to sedate her! She's a danger to herself! Look at her arm!" His pointing and dancing and already trying to think of a way to drown me in the nothingness of the drugs again. He grips the syringe tightly, waiting for his chance to pirouette and stab me.
The ballet of the desperate doctor, tutu not included.
The captain turns to me, touches my arm and surveys the damage. His voice is soft in the din, though I don't strain to here him.
River hears everything.
"What scared you? What made you do that to your arm?"
My voice is dead. It's been burned away by the screams.
There are always screams.