Anxiety…Hidden in the Snow

XXX

Riddick's POV

It took three doses of meds to calm her down, and only then it was by knocking her out. I haven't left the infirmary since she screamed. The look on her face is burned into my brain.

Inara hasn't left the room either. It's kind of eerie though; she just sits there looking at River with these kinds of vacant eyes. What's intriguing is that Inara hasn't said a thing to the doc since he came on board. The woman is usually full of questions but she hasn't said shit…and they both have avoided looking at each other.

"How is she?" Mal asks the doc as he walks into the infirmary.

The doc just responds coolly. "I can't do anything more until she stabilizes."

"Will she?" I ask.

"I can't say yet." The doc replies coolly again.

The doc comes over to examine River again and Inara immediately moves to the other side of the room. Their little charade is getting to be frustrating.

"I want know what's going on here." I say as I look between the two of them.

"Well, we won't know anything until she wakes up." The doc says.

"I don't mean with her, I mean with you two."

And now both of them turn and look at me with wide eyes.

"Did I miss something here?" Mal asks.

"The way these two have been acting makes is seem we aren't privy to something they know. Maybe the reason why the girl screamed bloody murder before the doc gave her the drugs."

"That so?" Mal asks Inara and the doc.

"How is it any of your business?" The doc spits out with a sneer. "What could you possibly have to do with my sister anyways?"

That irritates the fuck out of me and before I know it I am up and have the doc pinned against the wall…shiv to his throat.

"I've killed men for using a tone like that before. Be thankful you're her brother." I say, but I don't remove the shiv.

"Riddick, for Buddha's sake you're going to give the kid a heart attack." Mal says from off to the side.

"As far as I'm concerned he and she…" I say as I jerk my head towards Inara. "Owe us some answers."

"She's my mother." Comes a soft voice from behind me.

I turn and see a barely coherent River trying to sit up on the table.

XXX

River's POV

The voices screaming in her head are what pull her from her drug induced slumber. Angry, accusatory voices…

She hears his voice before she sees him. "As far as I'm concerned he and she…. Owe us some answers."

"She's my mother." She manages to get out.

She tries to sit up now. Her limbs feel as if they are made of tissue paper. Stupid drugs.

"How are you feeling?" Inara asks as she walks towards the girl to help her sit up.

The remnant of the emotions she felt begins to well in her chest and she feels a tear slip down her cheek. The soft notes and chimes of some long forgotten song play through her mind. They are oddly beautiful given the melancholy they carry with them. They remind her of a lost SOLDIER who was told everything he remembered about himself was a lie, something constructed for an experiment.

"Betrayed." She says as she glares at Riddick. "Would you mind letting him go? She would like some answers before you attempt to disembowel him."

Riddick hesitates and the girl narrows her eyes at him. He finally relents and lets Simon go.

"You were never supposed to know." Simon says as he rubs at his neck. It's not an apology, just a statement of fact.

"She is amazed that they hid it from her so well…" She bites out as she looks over at him.

"Oh don't give me that crap River…I've had to deal with your temper tantrums my entire life."

"Irrelevant. You weren't subjected to what she went through."

"Yes, I forget, you were so deprived as a child." Simon retorts.

"Hey you two, keep the fighting to a minimum till we get some answers." Mal interjects in a very fatherly tone that immediately draws Simon's ire.

"All due respect Captain, I fail to see how you have any say over this."

Captain Daddy isn't happy now. He's tempted to follow Riddick's route and can feel the tingle of thoughts about his gun…

Inara brings them back to reality though. "I didn't know it was you till I saw him." Inara says as she casts a sympathetic glance towards the girl.

"How?" The girl asks in a small voice.

"He was there when your …when they collected you. I never knew their names…but their faces have been etched in my memories ever since that day. He grew up, but there was no doubt in my mind it was the same little boy I saw that day."

"Why the hell would someone do that?" Mal asks.

"It's a common practice, not a well known one, but common. Our…my mother didn't want to go through another pregnancy. Inara was matched based on the qualities that my parents were looking for." Simon easily supplies.

The words sink into her mind and she can feel sadness and anger well up inside her. "She knew there was something…something so familiar and utterly perplexing…a darkness that shouldn't have been in your repertoire…." She says as she swings her feet off the table and jumps off. Her feet are wobbly underneath her, but the adrenaline that has begun to course through her veins steadies her.

"Bit' shouldn't you sit…"

"She is fine." She bites out as she begins to hobble towards the door.

"River, you really shouldn't…"

"SHE SAID SHE IS FINE." She yells at Simon as she walks out of the infirmary.

XXX

Riddick's POV

"Let her go doc." I say as she walks out of the infirmary. I know she needs to cool down after the bombshell of information she just got. Hell, I'd be tearing the place apart if I found out everything I thought I knew was part of a sick twisted reality…and I don't doubt River is about to destroy something.

"So what do we do now?" Inara asks the room.

Mal waits a moment before he answers. "Bit just needs some time to cool off. We just let her be for the time being. In the mean time we got business to attend to." He says as he shoots me a glance and I nod.

"What business is that, exactly?"

Mal turns and gives him a murderous look, but the doc doesn't back down. Stupid kid.

"I just got dragged out of my life and thrown into this and I can't know? Is it gold? Drugs? Pirate treasure? What is it that could be so important?"

"You don't wanna go down this road with me, boy." Mal bites out.

"Look I don't know what kind of low life scoundrels you all are, but…" He doesn't finish his sentence though as Mal decks him. He goes tumbling. Mal looks down at him.

"This is MY boat…you might do best to remember that." Mal says as he walks out of the infirmary with Inara hot on his heels.

I chuckle. "Saw that comin'."

This just earns a relatively murderous look from the doc on the floor. There is a hint of River in that look.

"Save it…You know you may want to drop the high and mighty act doc, people don't usually last long around here with one."

"That a threat?" He says as he gets up.

"Just a piece of advice." I say as I walk out of the infirmary.

XXX

…Somewhere else in the verse…

"This is a joke right?" He sits at the cortex and rubs at his temples after his underlings delivered the news.

"What do you mean that you failed to bring in Dr. Tam or Subject Zero."

The two men exchange a look and the turn back towards the monitor. "They evaded capture. They were assisted by an individual we have yet to identify." The taller man says in a monotone voice.

"I'm very disappointed." He says as he begins typing in a series of numbers into his cortex.

"We understand sir, we have sent the security footage we recovered to you and apologize again. This will never happen again sir."

He takes a deep breath and exhales. "I know." He says as the feed abruptly disconnects with static left in its place.

"Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend." He says to himself as he begins pulling up the security feeds they sent him before their…disposal.

He quickly scans till he sees her face exit the morgue. "Interesting." He says as he watches a man exit behind her.

XXX

Riddick's POV

I'm leaving the infirmary when I run into the Shepherd in the hallway.

"How is she?" He asks.

"I'd stay clear of her for a while. Girly got a bombshell dropped on her. Apparently Inara's her mother."

His eyes go wide at this. "What!"

"That's what she was screaming about before the doc put her under apparently; she heard it from the doc and Inara."

"How did she handle the news?"

"Apart from the screaming? How do you think? Girl had a fucked up childhood, parents that basically sold her to her tortures, and then she finds out that the woman she murdered wasn't even her mother."

"It's unfortunate that she must endure so much."

XXX

River's POV

Her eyesight still blurs from the lingering drugs. One minute she is standing in their bunk…the next the room blurs into her memories…

…Reality shifts…

The chimes of bells punctuate the air… a chill settles across her skin, and she watches the scene unfold before her.

It's some sort of family dinner…there are at least twenty people around the table. She's seated at the table next to Simon and one of her cousins. Everyone is talking about simple pleasantries aloud, but there are whispers of truth.

"Why did they go through with it?"

"They should send her back."

"She's not one of us."

They didn't make sense then…the questions, the glares, and accusations of an outsider…She doesn't really remember picking up the knife when she became frustrated with the whispers, but she does remember the screams as she lashed out at one of the whispers.

…Reality Shifts Again…

The sensation of the cold metal under her feet makes her open her eyes, and once again she's standing in their bunk. The floor is littered with shredded pieces of paper, clothing, and feathers from the mattress. Like the memory she doesn't remember picking up the knife, but she's still holding it when she looks down.

She releases it and it falls to the floor. Her knees give way and she slumps to the floor like a rag doll…and for the first time that she can remember…she cries.

XXX

AN: I am so sorry that it took me so long to post something new. Law school was kicking my ass. I hope you all enjoyed the reveal of Inara's secret. I know it may seem like I barely touched on it in this chapter, I promise it will come up again.

The songs alluded to in this chapter may be a little hard to find…Anxiety is from the Final Fantasy 7 soundtrack, and Hidden in the Snow is from Trent Reznor's soundtrack for the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.