Keep Me Young
He keeps her young, helps her remember the time when she was a little girl, when her sentences made sense and she saw with her eyes and walked with her feet.
Without him she is simply River-after, not River-before. She is empty eyes and broken speech and apple bits finding their way back into the world.
With him she is playing jacks with Kaylee and running through the ship with an apple and laughing at a joke that is said aloud.
He keeps her young, keeps her sane (or as close as she can get), keeps her happy. Keeps her grounded to the present, to the here and the now, and chases away all the echoes.
He is her anchor, and he keeps her from drifting into the farthest corners of space, the places where there is no light and no apples and no one to take her home again when she falls down.
She always falls down, and he always picks her back up again. She is a burden to him, one that he carries always.
But he carries it gladly, because when she smiles like she used to he has hope again, hope that she will be all better like before and they will dance together again.
And they will dance together again. She has forgotten the steps, had them taken away from her by men with blue hands and snakes that whispered assurances and spat poison.
But he will give them back to her, dig them out of old childhood memories of ballet recitals and rainy afternoons and hand them to her, clean and shiny once again.
He will help her remember how to dance, show her how to spin and twirl and follow the music. He will watch and remember how to smile and the world will be all right once again.
But for now he will wipe away her tears and carry her when her feet hurt from the stones digging into them. And through it all, he will show her how to remember.
He will keep her young.