A/N: takes place during objects in space.
And she finds herself inside four steep walls. Count them; one, two, three...
Four: artificial. Wood is a rarity. She can watch them close on herself and open, breathing even with the heartbeat of Serenity. Breathing in recirculated breaths she knows her lungs have held before.
-
Herself: she finds elasticity in the way her limbs bend outward, capturing fluorescence. Every muscle, tendon and cell reflects its role in her fluidity.
When she is alone (which is most often), she counts those bones and names each lovingly. Radius. Ulna. Femur.
And she waits.
And waits...
-
Serenity breathes quietly today, anxiously even. She worries yet speaks nothing of the heatwaves that bounce back strangely and the crew continues their routines with stiff joints and locked lips. Eight souls that no longer feel safe at home because there is a killer aboard (and they wonder why their flesh ripples gooselike when they pass her cabin).
It is not resentment she feels. It is not betrayal or a false sense of desperation because deep in her instincts she realizes the truth in their sentiment. The fear that she understands (but does not comprehend).
And yet she finds herself inside four steep walls that tower above her head. Count them; one, two, three...
Four: Unconsciously, she ponders their reaction with a mixed sense of gratitude. Consciously, she twirls her hair around an elusive index finger until it curls in obedience.
-
There is a knock on the door and she denies passage. Neither of them speak for a moment. She finds his blatant disregard for her privacy, however, a blessing when he brings her dinner and holds her in the way a brother should. He placates her with medical speak.
There is another pill that night, after dinner, after talking (he talked, she listened), and he promises - in the empty way - that this is the treatment. This is the cure. She doesn't have the heart or the lucidity to call him a liar.
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Prophesized warnings. Objects in the space between spaces that do not belong. Objects that close in and have strategies and wear deep blood for second skin. River doesn't sleep tonight.
She hides from the Big Bad Wolf with a terrifying scent - behind her flock of sheep, probing the dark corners until her radar flashes pleasant green.
When she reads him she smells violence in the way he walks - regret in the way he chooses not to regret. Purpose in the confidence of the right hand that holds a single-minded search to capture and destroy.
He's not a bounty hunter. He's a bounty hunter.
She makes him her mission.
-
And she finds herself surrounded by - nothing.
Out in the Black, she waits only a moment for the stars to wave their greeting, for taking more than a moment risks her family - she knows the wolf has no such prejudices.
She whispers to herself in the language of the sky.
Out in the Black, her mind is silent, and in that sensation she allows herself total immersion.
-
Secrets in the cabin - his memories strewn about like forgotten clothing. Her visage glows blue and stares at her blankly in a ghastly mockery of what she once was. Once broken, always broken.
At first, seeing herself makes it hard to breathe as she remembers the azure cadence of their hands.
But she also remembers her mission, and her hands dutifully find the buttons gleaming in the light of space that link her home.
You're wrong, Early. Wrong about River.
River's not in the ship. They didn't want her here; she couldn't make herself leave.
So she melted – melted away. They didn't know she could do that, but she did.
I'm not on the ship. I'm in the ship. I am the ship.