Hair shines like gold, but might turn to grey before her wish comes true.
Inara isn't happy. She acts like she is, but she's not. She looks at one of her spent customers, and she wishes for something more. She's a good liar, though; she smiles and she talks, and makes them believe that they're her favorite. Each one thinks that they're the only one she'll ever think of again. They're very wrong. She thinks of one man, and one man alone; the only man that accepts her for herself.
At first she thought that he was every single man that had seen her. He was a dog to her. Worse than a dog; he was a pent up man. Voracious, hungry, all that sexual energy bottled up in one place for months and years and soon the man don't care who it is that's screaming. When time passed, and he didn't touch her, she relaxed more. She likes this place, just as much as he does. Where all she sees is him, though, all he loves is his mistress.
She wishes that her beauty will fade quickly, so that he won't sometimes catch a glimpse of her and break her heart with one little look. I hope it doesn't. She's pretty.
Shepard isn't happy. He looks to find something in his broken book, but it doesn't do him any good. He should have let me fix it. There are too many memories in him to lose them from reading and praying. Memories of screams and tears, of dying and fears…there are many, many memories. Sometimes, when he's gone away to that place in his head, it spills over like bathwater when you get in. They all soak into me, and I can't tell who is me and who isn't. It happens a lot. His thinking doesn't fit.
Jayne hasn't ever been happy. He equates orgasm to happiness, but I wouldn't know. I remember…yes, I remember having one of them. I don't know who was with me. And I don't remember who I was at the time. Maybe I was Jayne.
Maybe I'm still Jayne. What happens when River isn't River anymore?
Whoever I am and whoever he is, Jayne isn't happier but when he has a trigger to his finger and a wetware target to aim at. Sometimes I think that it's towards me he's pointing, but then I open my eyes and I'm safe, curled up on Her scaffolding. Jayne isn't to be trusted, he doesn't trust himself.
Kaylee was happy once, and she keeps some impression of it now. Her heart is breaking a little more with every second that he isn't hers. It's a dance between the mechanic and me, but he doesn't realize it. Maybe she doesn't either, and it's all in my head. I try not to think about these tiny discrepancies in reality. I know every word that was said at dinner last night, but I don't remember what we ate. So, Kaylee isn't happy because I'm selfish and want River happy instead. A small bird dies in a fallen nest, and I'm sorry for it.
Zoe is as close to happy as she has been since the war. I told her about the little person, but I don't think she understood until she discovered for herself. And she hasn't told him. She wants it to be a surprise. I'm glad; I like little ones. They don't know better than to talk to me. I wish her well.
Wash isn't happy, because he thinks that she's still angry at him for not wanting the little one. She hasn't told him the truth yet. I can feel his future unrolling before him, but it isn't normal. What's before him is…nothingness. An abyss. I'm scared, I'm terrified of it. I can't bring myself to mention it to him. Or her. Wash is not going to see his little one to birth.
Mal…doesn't know what happy is. To him, seeing Her was a happy moment. Every time he sees the other her, that's happy, too. He likes her. He can't stop himself when he gets angry, but she's the only one that makes him angry like that. He's gotten hurt before, and he doesn't want to do again. Gunshots, sword points, bare knuckles - nothing compares to the sight of her back as she walks toward her customers.
Simon is sad. He remembers being happy, when he was with her. Before everything happened. He sits and he thinks about his shiny needles and the pain he could stop so easily, because now he's afraid his talents are wasted. Or maybe not. Maybe it's me that thinks these things. He's sad about River now, about how River doesn't know if she's me now or her.
Serenity is like a mother, a sister, and a wife. Mother to River and Simon, protecting, shielding. Sister to Inara and Jayne and Wash and Zoe and Shepard and Kaylee, understanding, laughing. Wife and mistress both to Mal, her only love. But, because she sees her little ones and knows that more would be happy if she lets Mal go, she wants Mal to go to another. She is understanding. She is patient. She is River's best and most trusted friend, because whispered secrets that have to be told will be kept. The catwalks and scaffolding won't echo it back.
River is sad, and knows too much. People want to use her to know even more. She doesn't want to go. River wants to stay here, on Serenity with her silence, in the company of Simon with his stainless tables and Inara with her perfumes and Mal with his glares and Wash with his laughter and Kaylee with her tools and Zoe with her wishes and Jayne with his guns and Shepard with his broken book and River with her mumblings.
Maybe, if she stays here, River will get better. I hope she will, because then I will go away and she will be the River from before again.