AN: I nearly wrote Middle Earth instead of Earth-that-was at one point. Go me! As always, read and review, cos reviews rock my world.
AN2: Don't you guys just love Snag? I do!
AN3: Title refers to Terry Pratchett's The Truth.
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"The dreamer awakes."

River's eyes snapped open.

The enclosed space she had shared with Faith felt empty and she found she was sorry she was alone, the other girl seemed to understand her in ways the others didn't. She stood, feeling muscles and tendons stretch as she did, then stepped out from behind the crates, padding lightly along on the tips of her feet.

Something changed in her and each step bringing her further from the person she was, each step seemed to echo as she became Aware.

Each sound she heard, each movement seemed exaggerated and her vision seemed to almost swim as her senses went on overload, straining to see what could not be there. Like a volume control button being turned inexorably higher, the voices in the back of her head became louder and louder, 'til she couldn't tell her own thoughts from theirs and it scared her.

They weren't her thoughts, she shouldn't hear them, it wasn't normal, it wasn't right.

It wasn't fair!

She had no control, she had strength and skill and powers others didn't have; she knew it in this time. But she had no control and that was what made the Awareness so unbearable.

She stamped her feet wishing the noise would block out the voices, those other senses, but to no avail. It controlled her. Controlled what she saw, what she felt, what she heard. A marionette with too many strings.

She kept stamping, a whirling dance, hands over her ears, hair and clothes swirling round her.

She whimpered once, it sounded louder than it should even to her, and again. And again, and again 'til the voices seemed quieter.

It was only when half the crew were gathered around her that she realised she was doing more than whimpering.

"River," Simon ran towards her, hands outstretched, beseeching. "River, please." He tried to hold her, then tried to grasp her flailing hands, but she was too fast for him.

She heard other voices behind him, real ones this time. She heard the Cap'n insisting that she be gotten under control and now, gorram it.

Something inside her snapped.

She didn't belong to anybody to control. She pushed Simon away hard, and didn't bother to look where he fell and lashed out at the stunned Captain.

Zoe had her gun out even before the blow would have hit, but she was saved from her decision when a small hand stopped the blow, pulling it away at the wrist, forestalling any head-related injuries.

Faith.

River stared at Faith wide-eyed for a moment - face grim, River's hand gripped tightly in one of hers, the other pulled back, ready to throw - or block - the first punch - before putting the equation together in her own head and coming up with the only solution that fit.

Enemy.

She pulled her captured hand back fast, using the movement to throw the first punch as she drew the other girl closer. Faith blocked and used her hold on River to pull the girl off balance. But River used to momentum to twirl away and out of Faith's grasp.

What happened next was a shock to the watching crew, Zoe still armed, Kaylee kneeling by the stricken doc, Mal just standing there gob smacked as he watched the two people on the ship, next to Kaylee, he have considered most defenceless, parry, punch, block and thrust, punching and kicking their way round the cargo bay, it was more than a bar-room brawl - no man he'd ever fought against in a bar-room brawl had ever cart wheeled out of the way of an incoming punch or kick.

"Does it seem to you that they're moving a mite faster than normal?" Mal asked Zoe quietly.

"Have to say sir, I've never seen a human blur like that before," she answered in that strait-laced voice of hers.

In the length of time it had taken them to speak those few words - it was over. Faith had managed to get the better of River. Though both were standing, Faith had one hand in River's hair, the other pulled back to land a punch. But the look on River's face told her she wouldn't need to.

Adoration, relief, hero-worship, each were plainly visible on River's face.

Faith slowly released her hold on the other girl, stepping back with a puzzled look. She wasn't the only one. Behind her she could hear angry exclamations and curses, but the only word she heard clearly was from the doe-eyed child in front of her.

"Mother!"

---

Mal stared down the long table, watching the interplay of characters, using it as a tool to try and figure out to play this out.

Zoe stood to his right, not looking at anything, hands on her hips - ready to draw. She was as worried as he.

Wash, still talking, trying to figure out this new conundrum. More excited than frightened.

Jayne, not saying anything at the moment, but that was probably because he was busy drinking and staring at Faith with something in his eyes that Mal definitely didn't like.

River, currently being held close by the bruised, but otherwise, uninjured - lucky-for-him - Simon. And she was still staring at Faith with that same look - part-adoration, part-wonder. It was almost frightening, the amount of trust shining in the girl's eyes.

Faith, on the opposite side of River, was not saying anything, only glancing between him - and her hands. Her hands which were scraped and red. River's blood, he reminded himself grimly, though the fact that River's hands had met the same fate had not escaped his notice.

Kaylee was next to Simon, still trying to get the boy's attention, asking him if he was alright, boy had hit the ground fairly hard, after all.

Book was standing, next to Inara, bring her up to speed. He didn't bother trying to pass off the angry looks she was sending him on their littler interlude earlier. She had warned him about the newest passenger afterall - he grit his teeth, trying not to think about the bruised lips Faith was sporting, something that hadn't come from her little brawl - and she was quite fond of their resident crazy person.

Ai ya, but he hated being wrong. Or at least not being right.

"So... Faith came from the future, to go back to the past and give birth to River, then came to now to find her again, and--"

"Wash, bee-jway," he said, cutting Wash off in the middle of a particular crazy notion about River's heritage based on the girl's crazy mutterings.

Everybody shut up and stared at him, even River who was slightly creeping him out with the look in her eyes, but at least he had everybody's attention.

Now he just had to figure out what exactly to say.

He took a breath. Then another one when the first didn't help. When he was taking the third one and realised he was stalling and the crew were beginning to look a bit bored.

"Now, it seems to me that we have one or two, itty-bitty, developments that we may need to converse upon," he said finally. "Not least of which is River's early morning wake-up call." He forestalled Simons protest with a quelling hand. "Seems to me, somebody needs to tell one or two tales. Like where they learned to fight like that, and where they get off punching on my crew!"

The look he levelled on Faith would have had Jayne stumbling over his words.

"Would you believe it comes naturally?" Faith asked. There was a tilt to her head that said she didn't care if he believed her or not and that he had better stop trying to shame it out of her cos that wouldn't work.

"The fighting? Or the punching on the crew," Inara remarked cuttingly. Faith and Mal both ignored her in favour of trying to out stare the other.

Faith was mad. One minute they were kissing and stuff and the next- Sure she understood the pressing need that had driven them all to the cargo bay but it was like he had just forgotten their little make-out session and on top of that she had saved him from getting him face pounded on and he was talking to her like she was a troublesome schoolgirl. She was getting more pissed off the more she thought about it.

He was staring at her real hard, but the other Faith - the one that jumped feet first into demon nests - was coming out to play and she had faced worse things than a guy in a snit. Even if said guy was her supposed-husband.

"How 'bout you make with the story-telling and I don't toss you out the airlock?" There was a collective intake of breath at that threat.

Wuh de tyen, ah, he was an idiot sometimes, he thought.

Faith just smiled, a real slow smile and for a second Mal forgot his name.

"How 'bout you try?"

He quickly remembered it again.

"Faith…" Book tried pleading, she didn't look at him.

Mal stared, his mouth a thin line. Faith just watched him a moment, the grin fading from her face 'til there was nothing left, not a hint of emotion, not a flicker, or a twitch.

"You wouldn't believe me."

"Try me?" it was more than a plea for the truth of what had happened. It was a plea for her to trust him enough to tell him. He'd decide the whyfors' of that later.

There was silence, as they still stared at each other, not knowing what the other was thinking. Everyone else just wondered what the hell was going on.

Faith broke first.

"I'm a Vampire Slayer. Born over five hundred years ago on Earth-that-was."

She avoided looking at anybody as she said it and resolutely stared at the table awaiting their reactions.

"Aw, crap," Jayne exclaimed, Faith jerked in her seat, staring at him startled. "Now we got two o' the crazy Hún dans."

"Jayne!" Mal barked warningly, but Faith only laughed.

For a moment there, she'd thought…

Kaylee broke the ensuing silence.

"Vampire slayer?" she asked, sounding particularly confused. "Gwai-gwai…" she stared around the table helplessly, but nobody else seemed to have any idea either.