A/N: This was written a while before the movie came out… It's based enough on Silent Hill 4 to be considered a crossover, actually. River introspective and sort of roughly sketched out past, though it's now AU.
Family
They're watching me from the Middle Room.
The whispers penetrated the thick stone walls easily. It was, after all, problematic and improbable at best that she could hear them anyway, so why shouldn't they be able to slip through nonexistent cracks and worm into her brain?
Most of the whispers were mournful, but almost all of them were the same thing, the same sentence thought over and over, fearful and panic ridden.
They're watching me from the Middle Room.
She knew, too, what they meant. On one side of her small cell was a door, locked, always locked. Opposite the door was a small, oval window, bright.
At times, a dark shape passed by the window, sending shockwaves of terror through her system.
When one person wasn't thinking it, at least three others were. The thoughts crowded in her head; thoughts that were not her own and had no right to be there, no right to take up space in the already confused capacity. Sometimes, she squeezed her eyes shut and clamped her hands over her ears, but it made no difference.
When it wasn't thoughts of the Middle Room, it was ones just as bad.
Where am I?
It hurts.
They're coming.
I want my mother.
I can't be here.
I'd rather die.
They're coming.
I know… I'll hang myself.
They can't get me if I'm dead.
They're coming!
I want to go home.
Where is home?
Why?
No more…
THEY'RE COMING!
Sometimes, she did not know whether these thoughts were even others. Sometimes she wondered if they were her own.
But it almost always boiled down to things she could never know if they were her own thoughts. She always knew when the dark one would pass her window before he got there. She heard the thoughts of the boy in the cell next to hers;
They're watching me from the Middle Room.
And then, less then a minute later, they were watching her from the Middle Room.
She felt so alone, in her small cell, head crowded and heavy. Sometimes she would hear screaming, roiling loud and heartbreaking sobs accompany, and she never knew it was her screaming until hours later when she noticed how badly her throat hurt.
Would Simon come?
She didn't think so. She had sent him the letters, the code, but that had been almost a year ago. There were times when she wondered if that hadn't been one of her fevered dreams.
Simon would not come.
She was alone, would be alone forever with screams that might be hers, with thoughts that weren't, with the dark one watching her from the middle room and
they
they're coming
They're coming!
River started awake in a cold sweat, eyes wildly searching for the small oval window leading to the Middle Room.
But there was no window, only softly glowing sliding doors, a quaint room with one of two dolls that Mal had bought her. The other she tossed out the airlock because it had a funny look in its eyes and she didn't think she could trust it while she slept. Jayne thought this was ironic. Mal hadn't been very amused.
There were no thoughts forcing themselves into her, only quiet, 'morning' ones, as much as she continued to tell the crew that morning did not apply in space. Mal wandered through Serenity with a cup of hot coffee, pondering their next job. Jayne was still fast asleep, dreaming of guns, women and food. Inara rested amongst her scented candles, contemplating Mal and when she would finally tell them she was leaving. Kaylee hummed, double checking the engine. Wash and Zoe lay tangled in each other's arms, sighing happily and lovingly. Book read his fallacious Bible. Simon sat down to a bowl of bland food, thinking about River but not thinking about River, thinking about Kaylee but not thinking about Kaylee.
What was this? It was not the same as the Academy, as obvious as that was. It was also not the same as the time before the academy, when the deep black of space was nothing more then a notion, a thought in the brain of a girl, a wish.
At times she grew confused. Was she still in the Academy? Was this only the dream of a crazed mind, a hope? Or was this before the Academy, some fantasy of a too-bright girl who followed her brother and teased him because his baby sister was smarter than him.
Was this real?
She would be reminded that yes, yes it was real. With every hug, gentle kiss on the forehead, every time they became angry, every time they worked to protect her.
Yes, this was real.
But what was this?
She sat up in bed, swinging her feet over the side.
What was this?
She passed Mal in the hallway, and he mumbled a gruff good morning. Slipping into the kitchen, she scrunched her nose at the bad smell emanating from Simon's 'food'.
She left quickly before he noticed her, not wanting to be made to suffer eating that … well, there wasn't much of a word for it.
She trotted into the cargo bay and examined the dangling hoop. The boxes and crates. The airlock. Serenity's sturdy walls.
Was this… home?
Was this… family?
Family. Noun. People living together: a group of people living together and functioning as a single household.
Home. Residence. Residence: the place where a person, family, or household lives.
The definition said that yes, this was family. Serenity was home. However, there was something missing from the cold statements. You could not capture a family in a scientific statement, no matter how simplified or elaborated.
There was no term to explain the warm look in the captains eyes when she smiled at him, nothing to state how she felt when she played, or worked, or fought with her family.
Yet here it was.
And there was no more Middle Room.
No more of being convinced she would die alone.
And they were no longer coming, and even if they were, her family made sure she was always one step ahead, held her hand as they set traps and laughed at them. Something she hadn't ever considered possible before.
The thoughts sometimes were invasive, but they were always angry, or plotting, or hopeful. There was never once when they were created, concrete in fear.
No Middle Room. No They. No invasion.
Only safety.
Home and family.
Serenity and her crew continued to wake up to the nonexistent 'morning'.
River woke up, too.