Title: Blue Light Special
Author: Musical_Junkie/Tally/Live2TiVo
Fandom: Firefly
Pairing: None. River-centric.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: General BDM spoilers!
Summary: River is the girl, and the girl is special.
Word Count: A little over 1000
The girl is only the girl because that's who they made her. They made her into "the girl", as if removing her name makes things easier—as if she doesn't know that she is "the girl." They are wrong, of course. The girl knows that she is the girl. And the girl knows that the girl is special.
The girl is special even among all of the other specials. The girl is a special special, and she is treated as such. This is how it goes for the first two months. The girl gets more of the good food and less of the bad. The girl knows, because the girl can count. The other specials get four blueberries, but the special special gets five. Sometimes, the girl imagines there is a file somewhere that says "The Girl—special—requires an extra blueberry."
One night, the girl muses that if everyone is special at the special school for special people, that the specials are no longer special in this place of special. So, as the special special, the girl becomes the only special and the rest revert to normal. It is a new order, and the girl enjoys her extra blueberry even more. In a sea of four blueberries, it is a fifth, just like the girl is a special among the normals.
Another night, the girl wonders why she couldn't be a normal special like her peers. This thought occurs shortly after the girl is forced to start working for her fifth blueberry. The girl earns it with extra "lessons" that leave the girl too tired to eat all of the four, with no thought given to an attempt at the five. The girl offers her surplus to the normal sitting next to her. The normal thanks the special and asks for the rest of the food surrounding the extra berry. The girl pushes her plate to the side, and the normal accepts it hungrily. The girl cannot remember hunger and spends the rest of her mealtime sleeping with open eyes.
The girl misses the last night, because she can no longer process the concept of "last." No blueberry is the last, because there will be more the next day. No lesson is the last, because there's always another. No night is the last, because tomorrow is forever looming, and eternity becomes the girl's focus.
On the first night after the last, the girl is frozen. The girl sleeps, and, in sleep, the girl dreams. The girl dreams of the lasts. The girl wishes that she hadn't given her last blueberry to the normal who was now accustomed to the girl's discards. The girl wonders if the normal will miss the special, but the girl figures the normal will forget shortly after the normal returns to a place where she is a special. (If the normal returns to a place where she is a special.)
The first day of her thawed life is when the girl realizes she is back among the normal normals and that she is now a real special. Being special in a world of normal normals instead of normal specials, changes the girl into a crazy special, if one chooses to believe the gruff, imposing normal. The girl does not choose to believe, because that normal names weapons, and the girl decides this trait makes him a crazy normal. In his world, the girl is worse. In the girl's world, he is. The girl prefers her world.
The girl meets the rest of the normals, which include the brother, the captain, the mechanic, the pilot (and the wife), the companion, and the Sheppard (who is connected to the hair.) The girl longs for a world with three categories—the normals, the teachers, and the girl. This world—the world of the sky—is confusing. The girl is confused on the inside, the outside, the upside, and the downside. The girl is inside-out, upside-down, and special.
The girl is in a place where her words do not make sense to anyone else but the girl. Sometimes, the girl does not make sense to herself—this is what the normals call progress. The girl calls it confusing.
The girl has lived in three worlds. There was the world before, where the girl was special, but allowed to forget. There was the world then, where the girl was special, and controlled to embrace. Finally, there was the world after, where the girl was special, and made to adapt. The girl liked the world after, but she missed the fifth blueberry from the early days in the world then. In this world, the girl, the crazy normal, the brother, the captain, the mechanic, the pilot, the wife, the companion, and the Sheppard all have the same amount…none.
The girl adapts to the world after as best as she can. The girl is helpful—she fixes the mistakes in the Sheppard's bible, she listens to the mechanic lament about the brother. The girl thinks she is doing everything she should, and then the brother tells her that she is not. The girl picks up stray sticks on the ground, and the others get angry. The girl is lost, waiting to be found, wanting to be found, afraid of being found.
There is a fourth world soon enough. The girl is suddenly in the world after the world after, and everything is different. The Sheppard is gone along with the hair and the pilot, and the wife becomes the widow; the brother and the mechanic become the boyfriend and the girlfriend; the companion is the retiree. The captain is still the captain, but he isn't the same captain as before, and he is also the pilot.
The girl isn't the girl anymore, though. The girl is now the co-pilot, and the co-pilot isn't special special or normal special or special normal or normal normal or even crazy normal. The co-pilot is all of these things and so are the people around her, in their own ways. The co-pilot is more alert than the girl, and she is more controlled than the girl. The co-pilot is less confused than the girl, and she is less feared than the girl. She goes from special to special special and back to special; she goes from the girl to the co-pilot; but, she is all of these and none of these when she is one final thing—River Tam.