Disclaimer: Yes, I own Firefly ... in my own, fantasy dream world where I also own a pony and a plastic rocket. In the real world, sadly, I own nothing.

Misplaced

Hard to tell, sometimes, that there was more than shell, River mused. Not without humor, tenderness, but so hard, and with edges so sharp you'd shred your skin by just one light touch.

She stared fixedly at Zoë's back as she followed the older woman through the crush of Eavesdown's bustling crowds, making sure to put her feet exactly where Zoë's had been seconds before. Her height blocked out the white heat of the noonday sun, casting River in shadow. Put her feet in another person's shoes again, and the laces were all tangled. She would have to hop if Zoë didn't slow down.

Zoë did not slow down, but kept striding at a relentlessly steady pace towards the relative safety of Serenity's cargo hold. Irritated at her, River knew. She shouldn't have been out, but the Captain and Jayne and the Zoë-shell had a rendezvous with the Rodent-man, and Simon was just preoccupied enough with Kaylee to not notice her slip away. Just enough. She knew Simon thought, occasionally and naïvely, that because she loved (was?) Serenity, she would stay, never just leave. And she hadn't left, really, she intended to return, but she wanted to feel the wind on her face and the dust between her toes. Her wings were too heavy to lift without a rest.

It was funny, how they all seemed to think that closed and locked doors would be enough to discourage her. Too dangerous, her brother would have said. Not wrong. She had closed her eyes, tired of him being right, and stepped off.

When the Captain returned, he did not take kindly to the fact that his pilot had vanished, effectively grounding them on the planetside of a world he was keen not to have to spend more time on then he had to. And Zoë, stern and impassive and with her tangled laces, was the first to find River; and River, struggling to distinguish her own emotions from the seething mass of everyone else's, had found to her surprise that the metallic taste at the back of her throat was her own guilt.

She had found her way to a stall, a young woman's stall, with cheap seashell necklaces hanging from pegs and mother-of-pearl baubles on the counter and a baby on her hip. The baby was sleeping, and River had paused, looking at him. Peaceful. Blank. Nothing there, like the Black. Nothing there yet. Not good or bad, just not. Not yet. She had wanted to reach out and touch him, the promise of him, but no touching guns, and that somehow mattered here, when her hands reached for something again. No touching babies, then. She made that rule up herself. No touching. Her hands were bad.

That was how Zoë had found her; Zoë, whose hands were worse than River's but would have touched her own baby, given the chance. And River saw the fraction of a second where Zoë paused, eyes sliding over the mother and child, before looking away, at her, face blank. She felt the lie of Zoë's face, the yawning hole of loss and longing that lay behind it, dragging her right down into it, screaming, but Zoë's shell-face shamed her into silence.

"Time to go, River." In her soldier's voice. No arguing, no feeling. And River followed. Bad girl with bad hands. Guilt, guilt, she knew everything and still managed to rip a hole in Zoë's healing, and Zoë ripped her right back.

Not that either of them had meant to. It was just the nature of things. Just ...

And how, River wondered as she and Zoë headed towards the shape of Serenity silhouetted against the sun, did one heal the wound? She thought of maggots, for eating the infected flesh, and white-hot metal to cauterize it, and honey to sooth it. Even the honey would sting a little bit.

"Wait," she said, grabbing Zoë's arm and stopping her in the street. Zoë turned, impatience on her face, and River stood there in her shadow and in her shoes, trying to find words.

"River, Capn's not appreciating havin' to wait—"

"We don't all leave," she said earnestly. Comprehension was essential, vital to the success of the situation. "We don't—" She sucked in a breath, frustrated. Meaning too elusive. She tried again. "Ants get crushed, but some always come back to the hill. Always more, it doesn't lose all of them."

Difficult. Zoë was not the most imaginative crewmember on the boat, but she was watching River closely, appraisingly, aware of the intensity of her voice. People brushed pass them in the street and the hubbub rose and fell around them, indifferent to River's struggles to explain.

"We haven't left. You—we—" Family was not an easy word, not an easy thing to say to this woman, and it didn't fit in her mouth in the way that it should, pushing against her lips wanting out, but her voice couldn't shape it. "Parts. Pieces. We fit together, all of us. You have to crack the shell, or the pieces don't fit and we stay grounded when we weren't meant to." Woefully inadequate, but the words didn't fit. "One piece. You didn't break, but you were misplaced and we need you back now. No more shells." Maybe, it was enough.

"You finished now?" Zoë's eyebrows were raised. Not quite enough.

"No," she replied, aggravated. "Important things to say, can't find the words."

"And apparently your brother can't find your meds." Zoë's voice was laced with dry humor now, her face less closed than before. She turned back towards the ship. "Come on, gotta be getting' back. Others are waitin'."

"Yes," said River gravely, "we're all waiting for you."

Zoë paused and glanced back over her shoulder, and there, finally, was the comprehension. We are still here. And it wasn't very much, and it wouldn't be easy, River thought, because climbing out of the well was never easy, not when you were slipping on the stones and your shoelaces were tied together, but there was sun at the top, something to climb towards. It could get better.

But the understanding didn't show in the lines of Zoë's face. In a soldier's face. Zoë did understand, at least; imperceptibly softer eyes considered River for a moment before turning away again and starting back towards Serenity. She called over her shoulder, "Well, nearly there now." And River trailed behind, nodding to herself, certain that the meaning was there and was perceived, even if the words would never quite fit.

fin

A/N: Apologies if River and/or Zoë seemed OOC. I tried to keep them in character, but the plot bunnies may have screwed with my perception. Thanks for reading! Reviews welcomed!