Notes: Thanks for all the reviews! Here's some more.
Wash wrinkled his nose at the prospect of an evil-River wandering around unchecked.
"You heard the captain, fellow lackeys," he said to Kaylee and Simon. "Let's get back to the shuttle."
But Simon was still staring at the computer console in horror. "Look at this map. It lists all these exam rooms; there has to be at least a hundred other patients besides River."
Kaylee chewed her bottom lip. "And they wouldn't be logged in to the system. I mean, we can't tell where they are on the ship."
Simon blanched. He turned to Wash. "We've got to go look for them. They could be hurt. They'll need our help."
"Hey, doc, much as we all love your sister's nifty personality and would be overjoyed at the idea of a hundred little Rivers skipping around the place, we've only got thirty more minutes until this place blows. Besides – and you know how I hate to be gruesome – but since there were only two heat signatures, I doubt there's anyone left to rescue in those rooms."
Simon sighed. "I suppose you're right."
"You bet. Let's hurry back. I wanna check out those shiny Alliance fighters before I get the shuttle prepped."
Simon glanced back regretfully at the console before trailing after Wash and Kaylee.
Jayne, Mal, and Zoë had split up, each taking a different ring of the huge space station. Mal charged through forcefully, yelling in an irritated manner for River.
Zoë was methodical. And silent. She wasn't wasting any of her breath.
Jayne was a devil whirlwind, spinning through the rooms all quick and deadly like. He was panicked, but pushed the fear away.
They met up again by the center ring's transporter. Mal leaned against the cold black metal of the doors.
"All right," he began, "what are we missing? We've been everywhere."
"What about the engine rooms, sir?" Zoë asked. "At the center? Could be holed up there."
"Maybe," Mal answered. "But that's where the impending explosion is set, ain't it?"
"Seems only logical that River would go to the most difficult, dangerous part of the ship. You know, to build our character and such," Zoë commented with raised eyebrows.
"Yes, indeedy," Mal rejoined. "Well, let's sing some gospel songs and head on over."
Simon and Kaylee were sprawled out in the shuttle's captain chairs, looking dejected. Instead of allowing them to wallow in their misery, Wash insisted on cheerily describing over the coms everything he found fascinating aboard one of the fighters.
"Leather seats, Kaylee, leather-my-butt-has-never-felt-so-loved-seats!" Wash gushed. "I bet it even reclines. Hang on…" A pause, then Wash began gurgling ecstatically.
"It reclines," an exasperated Simon threw his hands in the air.
"Wash," Kaylee said, "if you love it so much, bring it back to Serenity."
"The whole ship? What a great idea!"
"Wait, no, Wash. I meant the chair, the chair!"
"Kaylee, you're a genius. I'm going to figure out how to fly this. Mal can pilot the shuttle."
"Cap will be mad," Kaylee warned.
"Then don't tell him yet. He'll have to agree when he comes running up with an army firing on him."
"Wait," Simon interjected, "what army? The place is deserted, right?"
"Oh, that's what always happens," Kaylee clarified. "Mal never walks back, he runs for his life."
"But, there's no one here! They're all dead!"
"Yeah," Wash explained, "that's just fate lulling us into a false sense of security. Something will explode. Or implode. Or just stink real bad. You'll see."
"You are all crazy," Simon murmured, shaking his head.
"Hey! Aw, crap!" Wash began shouting from the coms system.
"See?" Kaylee said. "Here we go. What's up, Wash?"
"This ship… it has cameras linked up into the station. I saw River!"
"What?" Simon shouted as he jumped up from his seat. "Where is she? Is she all right?"
"Uh, she's alone. It's all black and white and pixel-y… she's standing - no, sitting - by a… a door. Yeah, definitely a door."
"Wash!" Simon scolded.
"It looks like… yep. She's by the fusion engine room. Looks like the leaks contained, anyway, since she's not writhing on the floor. We still only have about twenty minutes until the place goes kerplow, though."
"I have to get her. I'll be back," Simon dashed out from the shuttle.
"Wait for me!" Kaylee followed after. "You don't know where you're going!"
"Um, I guess I'll tell the captain, guys," Wash added after a moment of silence.
"She's in the engine room. Well, Zoë, looks like you were right." Mal acknowledged after conferring with Wash on the link.
"Usually am, sir," Zoë answered.
Jayne ignored them both and continued walking down the corridor that led straight toward the central engine rooms. He was sick of this station, with its stupid, blinking red lights. Sick of Mal and Zoë treating this like it was a job or a war skirmish. Sick of chirpy little Wash talking too gorram much. He just wanted River back. Wanted her back and wanted everybody else to shut the hell up and get out of his way. So when the hallway ended in front of a locked door, he didn't even slow his stride – simply lifted up Vera, blew a hole in the sucker and marched on through.
"Jayne! What the gorram hell do you think you're doing?" Mal asked as he stomped after his mercenary.
But Jayne had stopped. He was looking around the room they were in now with a grim expression etched across his face.
Mal glanced around. The walls here were brightly polished stainless steel, as was the floor. One wall was filled with small cupboards. Drains were arranged strategically in the ground beneath a row of raised tables.
"What the hell is this?" Mal asked.
"Saw one of these on Ariel," Jayne spoke softly, remembering how River had grabbed his arm when she woke in that place. "It's a gorram morgue."
"A morgue? Why they got a morgue on a station?"
"It's a medical research station, remember Captain?" Zoë prompted. "Got to do something with their experiments when they're done with them."
"Rutting bunch of monsters," Mal shook his head miserably.
Mal walked further into the room, stepping around the mercenary. He glanced at the perfectly shined cupboards on the wall.
"Those what I think they are?" he asked sotto voce to Zoë.
"You mean body coolers? Yeah." She gingerly stepped around the empty tables and placed herself as far away as possible from the refrigerated coffins.
Jayne was still standing by the hole in the door, staring. He was furious at himself for allowing River to be dragged back into this nightmare of hers.
A tiny movement out of the corner of his eye grabbed his attention.
"Go se… Mal!" he warned as he trained his weapon on a door on the opposite side of the room.
The door's handle was slowly being turned.
"Don't shoot," Mal warned as Zoë lifted her rifle to her shoulder, "might be River."
The latch clicked, and the solid steel door swung open.
"That ain't River," Jayne muttered, priming his shotgun with a loud click.
In the doorway stood a girl, about River's age. She was painfully skinny, her knobby knees and elbows poking out from under a thin blue hospital gown. Her head was shaved, covered only in short dark stubble that was interrupted by deep purple scars crisscrossing her scalp. Her dark eyes were hollow but sharp, and as she began to smile at them her small teeth glinted malignantly.
"I've been waiting for you," she cackled in a hoarse voice, her thin fingers manically plucking the fabric that covered her.
"But you didn't come for me," she spat, "you want her." She locked eyes with Jayne. "Dirty, impure man. You can't hope to reach her."
"Yeah, yeah," Mal interrupted, "tell you what. You tell us where to find River and we'll get you out. This place is going to blow."
"I know. Little River set it up. Did it without me, the spoilsport. I just wanted to play." She snickered. "Did you find our game? You didn't move the pieces, did you?" she asked petulantly.
"What game?" Mal asked, his stomach knotting.
"River started it. Silly cacti. They couldn't tell she changed. She evolved. She's so much more dangerous, now."
"What happened to her?" Jayne growled as he watched the girl hop onto an autopsy table and swing her legs. It was unnerving, the way she emulated some of River's mannerisms and speech. But her eyes were so different. Hard and cold.
"She was afraid. But she was all alone. No one came for her. Broken pie crusts. Doctors stuck things in her. Sharp things. It hurt. She screamed." She kept her eyes on Jayne, her lips pulled into a perverse smile. "They wanted to use her. Thought she was better than us."
"Us? There's more of you?" Mal interjected.
The girl waggled her eyebrows.
"Not anymore. Stupid children. Didn't need them anymore. They had her. But, she didn't want to stay," she sighed sorrowfully. "Got loose. They chased her." She giggled, covering her mouth childishly. "She started it. But I was better."
"You mean, you killed 'em all? The crew?" Jayne asked.
She frowned. "Most of them. Silly little stream. She ran away when I started winning."
Zoë shuddered. The girl turned to stare at her. "Still not as good as you," she retorted maliciously.
"Now, see here," Mal began, protectively moving in front of Zoë. "I ain't taking too kindly to your attitude, young lady. River's part of our crew, so we're taking her home."
"But not me," she whispered sadly.
"Hell, no," Mal answered vehemently, "you're downright creepy. Probably skin us alive in our sleep."
"I wouldn't," she protested as she drew her knees up to her chest. "It's much more fun when you're alive."
"Crap." Mal felt an odd bubbling sensation in his nose. "Shoot her!" he shouted as his gun dropped uselessly from his hand and he crumpled to the floor.
Zoë opened fire on the little waif, but the girl twisted and rolled her body, avoiding every bullet. She leapt off the table and tore a handle from one of the cold chambers. Spinning low to the ground, she cocked her arm and threw her makeshift weapon. The sharp metal sunk deep into Zoë's shoulder, the force with which it was thrown knocking her down.
The girl leapt back on the table and sank down to all fours, coming eye-level with Jayne.
"She's not here anymore. Her soul escaped. You're too late," she whispered. "You could take me, instead. I would have waited for you. I wouldn't have forgotten you."
Jayne cringed at her words. He had failed River. Left her alone in her hell. His shoulders sagged.
"Take me off with you," the girl murmured beguilingly as she crawled towards him. "I trust you. I need you."
Jayne closed his eyes and willed his mind blank. He forgot the fear, the anger, even pushed away the realization that she was reading his mind. A painful burning began in his nose and crept towards his eyes. River, River, he chanted in his mind, letting everything fall away but her beautiful, haunted face. He remembered the way she laughed, the way she touched him. How she would run barefoot everywhere. She danced through his mind, swirling and lifting to silent music.
Mal watched in a daze from the floor where he fell. Why wasn't Jayne shooting the feng le girl? Just standing there in a trance.
Then, Jayne's leg kicked out, sending the wheeled table on which the girl was crouched into one of the body coolers. Jayne quickly followed, locking the door after her.
"Nice move, Jayne," Mal congratulated as he struggled to sit up.
Jayne strode over and hauled him up by the arm. "Zoë's down." He turned and lifted up Zoë, setting her on her feet.
"You all right, Zoë?" Mal asked.
"Fine, sir, it ain't too bad," she responded.
"All right. But you'd better head back to the shuttle. Jayne can go with you."
Jayne jerked up straight. "No way, Mal. I've gotta…"
Zoë interrupted him. "I'm fine; I can make it on my own. You'll need all the eyes you can get to find River, anyway."
"All right, if you're sure. I'll tell Wash you're on your way."
Zoë waved them off and began trotting back towards the shuttle. Her husband was going to be pissed, getting herself all banged up. And in his favorite shoulder, too.
Simon and Kaylee had run straight to the engine rooms, passing numerous examination areas on the way. Simon wanted to stop, to check for any data that might help him understand River but Kaylee pulled him away. They didn't have time. They had to find her first.
They crashed through the door of the engine rooms. It was an enormous space. Machines and metal boxes were strewn across the floor. Loose panels and wiring hung from the walls. The fusion reactors were housed in the center of the room, still safely sealed, but not for long.
"River?" Simon started calling softly. "Are you in here?"
Kaylee glanced around the room, then dropped to her knees and began checking under the equipment.
"Simon, look over there," Kaylee pointed towards the opposite wall.
There they found River huddling behind the bulkhead, legs pulled to her chest. She was draped in a pale blue hospital gown that ended high above her knees, revealing a crisscross of healed cuts on her arms and legs and bruises inside her elbows.
She hummed a strange, eerie tune while her eyes wildly darted about. Kaylee stared at her in horror.
"Oh, poor baby," she whispered sympathetically.
Simon crept as close to her as he dared and gingerly put his hand out, palm up, as if beckoning a wild dog.
"River, it's okay. It's me, come on out."
But River just skittered away, darting behind different machines, moving further and further away. Her eyes showed no recognition for her brother.
"What are we going to do? We only have fifteen more minutes!" Kaylee wrung her hands nervously.
"Go on, Kaylee, get back to the shuttle. I'll get her."
"No," she shook her head. "She's my friend, too. I won't leave here without her."
Simon squeezed her hand and again tried to coax River out.
"It's me, mei-mei," he called cautiously, "It's over, come out. Let's go home."
"Home, home," they heard her begin to mumble. "Home is where the heart is. Home sweet home!"
They saw her creep out from behind a crane that overlooked a deep, cylindrical storage area. Her voice rose in a panic, echoing in the cavernous room. "I want to go home, Simon! But I don't know where to turn! It's so twisted, Simon! It all hangs on a thread!"
She was shouting the words, balling her fists in her tangled hair in frustration. She ran again, stumbling and sliding on the smooth metal floor in her bare feet as she came dangerously close to the edge of the narrow catwalk. Suddenly, she stopped. Her face became peaceful.
"I'm going home, Simon. Race you!"
She was backing away, stepping closer to the brink of the catwalk that crossed the deep pit in the center of the room. Far below, the cold steel floor anticipated her fall. Simon and Kaylee froze, panic-stricken.
Mal and Jayne split up. Mal took the top level of the engine room while Jayne went through the solid steel door that led to the lower storage level.
Jayne hurried down a long flight of stairs into the narrow, silo-like room. Wiring and metal canisters lined the curved walls all the way up to where the space opened up into the engine rooms. He slowly spun in a circle, checking the walls, seeing no other doors and no sign of River. He could hear Simon's muffled yelling echoing from above. Jayne looked upward, and lost his breath.
High above him, standing on the very edge of a catwalk that crossed the opening, was his wife.
His knees buckled as he watched her slowly spread her arms to the side, tilt her head back over the emptiness, and let herself fall.
Please, he prayed as he leapt across the room, please let me catch her.