She was bad, they claimed.
She never ate supper that night, or breakfast the next day. They were training her to accept her purpose. To lose her needs. To become a weapon.
To become their weapon.
She resisted, lashing out violently until they inject her with so many drugs her heart burns and her each breath is heavier than the last. They carve into her flesh freely become she is their weapon, and they have every right to form her.
Three days after they starve her, they inject poison to her blood stream.
They were curious to how she would react.
They flush the toxins away, of course. They needed her alive.
…
When she is spewed from the box naked and warped, they do not see her scars. They do not see the livid slash on her hip, nor how hollow her stomach has become. They do not notice the neat little cuts on her spine, or how she flinches away from them with terror.
He speaks with kind words, remembering the soldier that was tortured for weeks before they recovered what had been left. He remembered the wide hungry eyes gazing at him, reaching out with fingerless hands.
He remembered placing a bullet in his skull to spare the child the pain.
He avoids River.
He cannot shoot the girl, because the war is over. Finished. She hides in the shadows, fearing her brother. He comes aided with drugs and needles, intent upon pulling her under to smothering calmness.
So she hides.
So he pretends.
…
They sit together at the table amongst the rest of the crew. She's poking at her food weakly, and Simon glances at her out of the corner of his eye. But soon she is forgotten because he is ensnared within Book's tale with the rest of the crowd.
But Mal watches River shrink within herself, little fingers grasping at her cup but releasing in the end. He catches sight of a scar wickedly long, curving from her elbow to her wrist. He snatches hold of her, hands madly capturing her arm as he holds it up to the light.
She's slapping at his hands, trying to pull free, but he's dragged her upwards, and yelling such hot words at her.
"Who did this to you?" He demands, shaking her. Simon is yelling at Mal and Jayne is yelling at everyone to shut up.
She can't focus because she feels pain pulsing through her core.
She lets herself faint.
She doesn't want to deal with the misery.
…
Afterwards they seek for her.
She hides within a vent, curled up in the darkness.
Simon won't stop raging at Mal, but Mal ignores him. He continues through the ship alone, peering through the crevices and cracks. But he stumbles alone her vent, and he knows she is within.
It is too dark and silent.
To full to be empty.
So he pries away the grate and crawls inside. She slips backwards, feeling way to the wall because there is no way out. He blocks her way, slowly moving towards her. His knees are stiff and his back aches but he pushes at her. She tries to slip by him, but he grabs at her before she can escape. He presses her close, holding her arms tightly.
"Stop running," he demands, pressing her still.
"Two by two they will come, because I am their own to break and use," she whispers hollowly, straining away.
"You ain't theirs." His words are stiff, because they are lies.
She has not escaped yet.
…
Simon forces her to eat. He threatens her with a tube down her throat until she sits at the table nibbling at bits and pieces of her food.
"You're scaring her, Doc." Mal's annoyed, because he always annoyed. Simon is pushy and loud he frightens River into submission, and Mal can't stop thinking about the boy that he shot.
Simon stalks away, calling over his shoulder to River. He reminds her of the feeding tube.
She moves to escape when he leaves, but Mal presses her back down. "Eat."
She doesn't.
She looks at him blankly. "I must be thin and hard like a knife, to slip through the cracks of the armour. I must suspend growth in favour of power."
He sits down across from her, and cocks his head. And he begins to tell a story from his war days.
And she listened.
And she became just a bit more full, and her plate just a bit more empty.
…
He finds her with a gun one night. Clicking the safety on and off.
"I won't do it." Her voice is dry, knees drawn to her chest.
She's seated with her back facing him, a scar visible on the back of her neck. He can't help but bristle at her words. "I know."
"Then stop worrying." She tosses the gun away onto the floor, and it clatters so hollowly within the empty space. He can tell its Jayne's gun.
"You haven't been taking your medicine." He doesn't want to do this. This isn't his duty.
River looks around at him. "I don't want it."
"You need it." He remembers one blue eye, the other one gorged out by Alliance torture. He remembered pulling the trigger.
"No. I'm breaking forward. Through the haze and through the injections. Acid to poison and blood to tears. Skin to bone and ash to dust."
He drops the needle and the pills.
He tells Simon to stay out of his way.
He stops thinking about the little soldier boy.
…
He finds her again another night. She's standing on a rail, looking down at him. "No power in the verse can stop me."
"I doubt anyone be damn foolish enough to try," he smiles slightly.
"You would be surprised," she tilts her head back and laughs wildly.
…
She is a weapon.
He wields her.
They become one.
"Don't let me fall apart," she whispers in the vent.
He's there, holding tight to her. "You are mine.
…