A/N: What am I doing? I should be revising:-P Can't stop the signal, not even when your university career depends on it ;-). This is justa short one shot set straight after the events of the movie, and it's dedicated to Merrie (aka. Fiend) for introducing me to Serenity/Firefly in the first place and encouraging me to fall head over heels in love with another fandom.
After the storm
Serenity: a disposition free from stress or anxiety, the absence of mental stress. River wondered whether this was the feeling people felt after a great battle had been won or lost, after you have poured everything into something and the outcome is clear. Thoughts were all settling in one place, collecting in a pool of consciousness. Floating in the black, the calm after the storm this time and everything was silent. Silent. Silent. The battle had been fought and it had taken everything. They were free now but for how long? It didn't matter. There was no need to think about that, not now, not yet.
"River?" Simon still thought he could approach her without being heard but his footsteps were louder than he knew and his thoughts, his presence, his love was louder still. She could feel him wherever he was on the ship.
"River, are you alright?" River did not answer at once. She stepped towards the door she had been facing and laid a hand on the cold metal.
"She's torn plenty and there's nothing that can help her. Torn inside where it hurts the most." Simon moved towards her slowly.
"River, it's ok. It's over now." But River shook her head. It wasn't over. Every ending was the beginning of something, every beginning was an ending. She moved closer to the door.
"It should have been her. He wasn't a fighter and he shouldn't have died that way. It wasn't right, it wasn't fair." River turned to her brother and looked at him with dark eyes full of things he could not understand. "Why isn't anything fair?" Simon reached out and put his hand on River's pale face, caressing her cheek softly like their mother used to do when they were children.
"River, do you want to talk about Wash?" That name. Wash. His face came forward to the front of her memory and he was smiling. He always spoke to her when she watched him on the bridge. There were dinosaurs, she remembered. Wash the pilot; Wash the friend; Wash the husband.
"He went away," she said as the image faded, "He went away and he's not coming back. But she misses him, she misses him so badly that sometimes it's all she can think about and she's driven mad by the pain." Simon lowered his head, a lump in his throat.
"We all miss him," he said quietly, "He was…he was a good man."
"That's not what she remembers." River looked back at the door. The door to Wash and Zoë's room only it wasn't their room any more. One who had been could be no more. Two become one.
"Are you talking about Zoë?" Simon asked finally cottoning on. River stared at him sharply. Simon looked instantly sheepish, like he did whenever he failed to understand her. The sharpness of her expression eased away and she smiled a small, sad smile because she missed Wash too. She missed the way things had been when he was here. She missed the parts of everyone that had been lost in the fight; Kaylee's sparkle, Mal's smile, Zoë's heart, Inara's gentleness, Simon's blood, Jayne's forgiveness…Shepard Book.
"Things are never going to be the same," she reflected sadly.
"No," said Simon. River felt herself being pulled towards him into his arms which were the words he could not say, the comfort he could not provide. She closed her eyes. They stayed together like that for a long time, silent in the silence until River heard the cry, the thin wail of a new being from far away. Her eyes widened as she listened because she knew that voice, only it was different somehow, the combination of two. She looked back at the room in which Zoë was sat, dry eyed and pale, and a smile spread slowly onto her face as she hugged Simon even tighter.
"We will see him again."
Every ending was a beginning.
A/N: How was that? Not too painful, I hope! Back to work...sigh