Summary: "Sometimes, late at night, River dances."
Rating: Adult general.
Characters: Zoë, River
Spoilers/Timeline: Major spoliers for Serenity. You have been warned.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Author's Note: Thanks a million to cccardiologylj for the beta. I despise movie ratings for fanfic, so it's all adult. This has nothing explicit, don't worry. And feedback is yummy.
Sometimes, late at night, River dances. She floats along the hallways, turning and bending, leaping and whirling. It's unconscious, this dancing, moving to the music in her head, memories of lessons and performances suppressed by the Alliance.
Most of the time, she dances to avoid sleeping. The nightmares of men with blue hands, classrooms in her brain, scal
pels and betrayal are too much for her to take. So, she dances, trying to reclaim the childhood that was stolen from her.
Late one night, she dances past Zoe's door. Lost in her own world, she doesn't even hear the other woman's thoughts until she's three feet past the door. When she does, she stops mid-plie. Cocking her head to the side, she backs up, slowly, then leans into the door, listening with her ears and her mind.
She hears the other woman's anguish, the pain she keeps hidden so well during the day: sounds of crying and thoughts of love lost. "Ain't nothin' in the 'verse gonna make it better," she whispers, echoing the heartbreak emanating from the room. River knows she shouldn't open the hatch, shouldn't climb down that ladder, but she does it anyway.
Bare feet making no sound on the metal rungs, she lowers herself into the room. She pads quietly toward the bed. Zoe is so enveloped in her grief, she doesn't even notice the girl until River's small arms wrap around her. "Shhh," she murmurs into the woman's ear, calming her fears as she starts. "You have to cry. If you don't, you'll break." Broken like me. The last words hover, unsaid between them, as Zoe cries out her pain, her loss. River holds her, as a mother holds a child, stroking her hair, murmuring comforting nothings, until Zoe falls blissfully asleep. Curled up around the older woman, River too drifts off, dreamless.
It becomes a habit. When the nightmares become too much, River takes comfort in comforting Zoe. Eventually, the nightmares dim, and Zoe's grief lessens. But in the middle of the night, River still finds herself dancing to Zoe's bed.