"I always seem to forget

How fragile are the very strong,"

-Ingrid Michaelson, 'A Bird's Song'


Zoe was doing better. She wasn't doing well- she didn't think she'd ever be truly okay- but she was doing better.

At first, of course, she'd felt awful. She'd died inside, and watched the rest of the crew recover and move on. She'd hated them for forgetting him, for betraying him, and she'd hated herself for hating the people she loved. What she hated most was when people told her that Wash wouldn't have wanted her to act like this. He was dead, he didn't care, would never care about anything ever again. She hated the Reavers with more passion than she'd ever thought possible, and she hated the Allaince more than ever.

And she'd hated River. She didn't want to hate River; she loved River. But every time she saw her, no matter how much she'd tried to think of the girl who had hidden from Sheppard Book's hair and become the voice of Serenity, all she could think of was that if it weren't for her, none of it would have happened. She knew it wasn't River's fault, but it sure as hell wasn't Wash's fault, either.

But she recovered, slowly. The pain dulled, she learned to stop blaming River, and she realized that Wash really would have wanted her to move on. She even smiled. Once, she'd actually felt a moment of genuine happiness. She'd been sitting at the dinner table, laughing at one of Mal's jokes, and she half-expected Wash to walk in and ask what was so funny.

Sometimes, though, she wanted nothing more than to curl up under some blankets and cry herself to sleep. Sometimes the grief grew from a deep, aching weariness of the soul to a sharp pain like a knife in her heart, or a harpoon in her chest.


Almost all of Boros was dressed in mourning. There were some who didn't, who wore bright, bright clothes in defiance of the event.

"It was obviously a hoax," one of them said, "Some kids playing an elaborate prank, and they've got the whole city falling for it, dressed like they're going to a funeral. Honestly, it's astounding how gullible people can be. I bet those kids are having quite a laugh at this."

Zoe wanted to hurt him very badly. She wanted to shout at him, to tell him what had actually happened, to somehow make him feel as bad as she did. But she did nothing while Mal asked what was going on.

"It's Mourning Day," someone said, "for those poor people on that planet."

"No, it isn't. it's Memorial Day."

"You're both wrong. It's Miranda Day. The planet was called Miranda."

"Well, its M-day, at any rate," the first woman said.

Mal glanced at Zoe. Are you okay? His eyes asked.

She gave a tiny nod. I'm fine. And she did her best to forget about it.

Back on Serenity, River couldn't escape it, and she lost herself the pain and the memories.


*End of Chapter 1*


'A Bird's Song' can be found on Youtube at .com/watch?v=8RSTSKmbpf4 This doesn't mean I'm giving up on my other story, I've just been working on this for a while, and decided to finally publish it.