Author's Note: Consider this a futurefic (as usual, written for the LJ ff_friday challenge), and a bit of a dark one at that. July 3's subject: games. Length: 845 words. The title comes from the phrase "all fun and games till someone loses an eye."

Till Someone Loses

By Trisana McGraw

Simon raced into the room, his boots clattering on the metal floor, as loud as an army. His breath chafed his lungs and throat, and his eyes burned from the smoke billowing around him. He could hear another faint explosion from the room next door, and he calculated that he had only a short time before the entire place went up in flames. Apparently someone had come to the Alliance facility before Serenity had and had generously sabotaged most of the rooms, effectively erasing all evidence of whatever had gone on there.

But before the building was destroyed, he had to find her. He'd come too far to lose his sister yet again.

As the smoke began to clear, he saw countless bodies piled on the floor or in chairs. They'd been caught off guard; some were slumped in front of consoles whose lights flashed madly. Simon instinctively covered his mouth with his collar, in case any poisonous gas lingered in the room, but he couldn't rule out the other possibility: someone, or several someones, had murdered these officials where they sat or stood.

At the moment he couldn't have cared what had happened. He knelt by a group of fallen bodies and turned them over, silently praying that he wouldn't see River's blank face. They were all soldiers and commanders, not to mention men; there was no young woman in the group.

Moving to the other corner, Simon found several men in white lab coats sprawled over each other. Their blue gloves were drenched in blood; some of it had splattered on their coats as well.

About to stand up again, Simon paused. His eyes went back to the gloves, and River's singsong filled his head. "Two by two, hands of blue." Still panting from running through the building, he stared hard at the dead bodies, trying to make his exhausted brain understand.

"Blue hands can't reach that far." River's voice, no longer a memory but part of reality, came from behind him. Simon whirled around, standing at the same time, his arms outstretched. River stood next to a body, her hands clasped behind her back as she gently swayed from side to side. Bloody handprints stained her cotton skirt, and there was a ghost of a smile on her lips.

"River," he sighed, feeling as if his heart would explode with relief. "Oh, thank God you're all right. What did they do to you? No, don't answer right now; I'll get you back to the ship." He could check her properly in the infirmary. At that thought, he remembered the other patient he had to take care of as well, and his joy at finding his sister diminished somewhat.

He put his arms around her, but River took a step back, still smiling. "Simple Simon, always trying to be the brave hero who rescues the lovely princess from her imprisonment."

"River, this isn't the time for that," he scolded, trying to push her toward the doorway, which was almost invisible through the smoke.

River wouldn't budge. "But the princess is too beautiful. No one can be that pure."

"River, stop talking about all that nonsense," Simon snapped. They were in grave danger, and here she was acting as though they were just playing. Memories came to his mind unbidden: River dancing before they were abducted by hillfolk; River shooting three men as if it were a game she and Kaylee were playing. "We have to leave. Zoƫ's waiting for us because the Captain's wounded; he's too weak to be in charge. And Shepherd Book is . . . gone. We don't know where he is. So we have to get you out of here. Come on." He started walking toward the exit, expecting her to follow him.

When he heard her voice again it came from the spot where he had left her; she hadn't taken a step. "What about the princess? What if she likes the tower?"

He was fed up with her ignorance. "River, come here right now!" he roared. "I'm tired of you behaving this way! The people who took me here to save you could die; people here already have. It isn't a gorram game!"

Something tore into his left leg, making him crumple to the floor. He cried out in agony as hot pain blossomed along his thigh and nearly brought blackness crashing over him. There must have been an automated gun that he had unknowingly activated. But there was only a blank wall, with no room to hide guns, on his left; a machine would have had perfect aim at his right leg. Instead he had been hit in the leg where he'd been injured before. No one but he and River could have known that.

Pushing himself into a crouching position, hissing with pain the entire time, he laboriously turned around to find River in the spot where he'd left her, holding a pistol in both hands. The laughter was gone from her eyes. "It's always been a game," she said softly. "And you've just lost."