Thanks to Frostfyre7 for introducing me to the 'verse. This story takes place after the events of Serenity. I'm pretty sure it's just an odd little one-shot.
"I'm all right," she'd said, and she was, her head no longer full of thirty million voices screaming; and it really wasn't so bad, this back-to-front way of looking at the world; it made things beautiful, and ugly, and strange. And she'd never been normal anyways. Now she could dance again.
But the storm- it was still approaching. The air was hot and humid, and she could hear the distant crackle of lightning. It was something beautiful, intricate, and huge, but broken and afraid.
River lay on her bunk, counting the stars in the universe. They winked in and out, like fireflies.
The new passenger was short, and blond, and she could pay; Serenity's crew did not inquire further. Kaylee gave her the selective passenger's tour, chattering busily, and tried not to meet her guest's eyes; it made her dizzy.
River stood outside the passenger's room that night, listening to the ship's engine's vibrations in the walls.
Their flight to Sihnon was remarkably swift and trouble-free.
The new passenger was trying not to look at the sky, Inara noticed.
"Does the red sky depress you?" she asked. "It gets some people that way. I was born here, you know. This place will always be home. I love the sky."
"It's beautiful," said the new passenger quietly, with such feeling that Inara smiled with patriotic pride.
"No one ever asked," she said musingly. "Where are you going?"
The passenger looked up at the sky. "I don't know," she said. "I'm looking for someone."
"I hope you find them," Inara said politely.
"Thank you," she said, smiling a bit herself.
Then Mal handed her her suitcase, and she melted into the crowd.
River stood in the passenger's room. The wet, wild, tree-ish smell of the storm was everywhere. The bunk had turned into three trees, growing out of the wet, rich, earthy ground. Leaves, wind-blown, covered everything. They were silver leaves, she realized, and they glinted prettily. She picked one up, and it turned into a sheet of note-paper, written on in blue ballpoint. She stared at the maze of equations and star charts and coordinates. There was a sketch in one corner, of an ornate grandfather clock with no hands.
A wind blew through the room, scattering the leaves, turning them all to paper. The scrawling, spidery writing leapt free from its two-dimensional prison, writing itself on the walls, on the ceiling, on the floor, on the side of the table, any flat surface. The blue ballpoint ran out, and a pencil was used instead. Then that ran out, and the words were scratched into the thin plastic wall coating with long fingernails. Then the walls turned to glass, and through them River could see the universe.
She dropped the paper in her hand and ran out into the corridor.
Mal had a brief confused view of the crazy girl running down the platform calling the passenger's name wildly. With her usual extraordinary grace she pirouetted through the thick mob of people that filled the spaceport dock, following something only she could see.
He had a slightly better and far more hilarious view of Simon chasing after her, tripping over his own feet and rolling down the ramp, then picking himself up only to get trampled by the crowd.
After another minute or so he helped the doctor to his feet. "Steady, steady," he said, still amused.
"Sir, we've got to go after River! She-"
"I saw her. Don't worry, Doc. She's a big girl, and she can definitely take care of herself."
"She's seventeen, and all alone-"
"I said, don't worry about it. If she's not back by the time we're ready to leave, then me an' Zoe will have a look round for her, alright? Just calm down."
He looked around.
"She'll be back," he said with confidence. "I'm sure of it."
Behind him the sun, much larger here among the Central Planets, sent out orange rays through the thick red atmosphere. Slowly, it began to set.
Simon wiped his forehead, feeling a sudden onset of heat and humidity. "A storm's coming," he commented.
"Yes," said Mal.
They sat by their ship, and waited.