Disclaimer: I own nothing; Harry Potter and the elements of his universe all belong to J.K.Rowling. Firefly/Serenity and the elements of its universe all belong to Joss Whedon. I'm just borrowing the characters to play with for a while. This is for pleasure only, no profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

CHAPTER TEN – Job Processing

"Now, they're completely insured, so the only ones losing would be some rich insurance company. So we go in, we grab the stuff, and we get out. They're not even guarding them that well. No one will expect a thing."

"Because no one wants them!" Mal insisted.

"They're collector's items!"

"That means they're rare and that much harder to move," Mal argued. "Why are we even talking about this? Do you even know what it's made of?"

"It's supposed to be better than bone china! Wait… is bone china made of bone?"

"Bone ash is used in making the porcelain," River helpfully explained.

"Whatever," Jayne moaned looking around for support. "Help me out here, Harry. You'd buy guano china if you were looking for some nice dinnerware, right?"

Harry snickered. "To be honest, I've never tried eating off guano."

"It's not guano," Jayne argued. "It's just good high quality dishes. They probably use guano ash because it's even stronger than bone ash."

"You really don't know what guano is, do you?" Mal asked Jayne.

Jayne rolled his eyes. "I know it makes for some gorram fine china."

Mal sighed and didn't feel like shattering Jayne's illusions at the moment. "What about you Harry? Have you come up with a better plan than simply 'let's rob Blue Sun?' Perhaps some specifics?"

"Actually," Harry smiled happily. "We have."

"We?" Mal asked.

"He means I came up with the plan," Harry's communicator, better known as the artificial intelligence of Mr. Universe interrupted. "But he needs his glory so he pretends he helped come up with this one."

"Oh hush," Harry chided. "You know more details, I made decisions. Now do you want to tell them my plan? Or shall I?"

"Please, by all means," Mr. Universe argued back. "Let's hear all the details of my plan."

"We're not going to break into Blue Sun," Harry explained. "We're going to go to one of processing plants, specifically one for long term food product packaging. And we're going to work the graveyard shift."

Mal looked over at Zoe, River, and Jayne. He asked, "Umm… when I said we were looking for a job, Harry, I didn't mean… a job."

"Come on, Mal!" Mr. Universe argued. "You think my plan would be for you guys to go legit? Have a little faith in me please."

Harry continued. "You all have seen the compressed protein packs, right? Smaller than a shoebox but can feed a family for a month?"

Mal nodded, "And if memory serves every one of those things is stamped and imprinted by the Alliance. Makes them dangerous to mess with."

Harry nodded. "Exactly. And that's why we're going to take over the plant and skip right over that stamping and imprinting step."

Mal's head jerked up having not really considered that prospect. He saw Zoe looked intrigued by the idea.

"Depending on how fast we can work," Harry explained. "Crank out a dozen or so palettes. Could hide it in any number of places on this ship. And we've got ourselves a priceless commodity for the rim. Something I'd recommend only selling in small bunches, and keeping most of it hidden for ourselves. The cargo would stay good for better than five years, but if you wanted to move all of it we're still talking many, many millions worth of platinum."

"No," Mal answered immediately.

"Captain?" Zoe asked looking at him inquisitively.

"No," Mal shook his head. "That's too big. Too risky. And we don't want to have boxes and boxes of illegal cargo on this ship."

Harry grinned. "I think you're missing the point Captain. It's not illegal cargo. If it were, it would be stamped and imprinted and traceable."

Mal insisted. "They are not going to just let a disappearance like that go by without an investigation."

"There won't be anything to investigate though," Harry explained. "Because when the morning shift comes on, the foreman will inform them that the newbies in the night crew were no good, and quit during the night. They didn't get any work done."

"I think they'll notice there a few million short when they inventory their supplies," Mal argued.

"No, they won't," Mr. Universe jumped in. "That's the beauty of it. I've already begun slightly twisting their numbers to account for an upcoming disappearance. And the added costs will be reassigned to the R and D department, which has an unlimited budget. Who knows? Maybe they'll even be forced to investigate the R and D. Give them a slap on the wrist. But the last thing they'll think of when the numbers all add up, and R and D's running at about ten times their normal funding, is that someone stole food stuffs from a stamping and imprinting plant."

"I like it," River smiled.

Harry grinned deviously. "We're talking millions, a product everyone can use, they'll never even know they were robbed, and if anyone gets the blame it's the R and D at Blue Sun."

Mal frowned but saw the others looked pretty convinced.

"Good plan," Jayne frustratingly admitted, still smarting over the lack of support for stealing guano china.

"It sounds way too easy," Mal shook his head. "What's the catch?"

"The catch?" Harry asked. "Well the overnight crew is a skeleton crew… of nine people."

"Nine?" Mal asked.

Harry nodded. "Which means everyone including Inara, unless you want to get outside help."

"I may not have as much fancy schooling as you, but I still only count eight. And I'm not a big fan of taking everyone with me."

Harry chuckled and shrugged. "The ninth is the chief foreman, who will be there, and unconscious and telling our story in the morning. I know Kaylee, Inara, Simon, and even River aren't exactly the dirtying-their-hands types, but this isn't wet work. No need for weapons. Actually, we probably won't be able to get any guns inside even if we did want to. There's unmanned security to the facility."

"If it's a sticking point for you, I can try and disable the security," Mr. Universe offered. "But honestly, that's a risk that would probably be greater than simply not bringing guns. Harry will still be armed, and even if he weren't he's dangerous enough as it is."

"Thanks, Frank," Harry snapped at his communicator. "And besides Mal, this is simply a great resource to have. You never know when you might need to fund and feed a revolution."

"The idea is to not attract notice," Mal argued staring at Harry. "We don't want to cause problems. We just want to keep flying."

Harry nodded but saw a glimmer in Mal's eyes. "Well, a score like this is the sort of thing you can retire from. And in case you hadn't caught on, without a trail, there's nothing to stop us from doing this again."

Mal sighed and saw everyone looking at him. "Alright. If you can sell the plan to Inara, Kaylee, and Simon, we're good. But I don't want to be bringing in any other question marks. You're carrying enough of those yourself."

"Understood," Harry agreed. "If any of them says no, I'll work on another plan."

"You didn't even work on this one," Mr. Universe snapped back.

"Or we can go with my plan," Jayne suggested.

River smirked, "Your plan is gos se, Jayne."

"No it's not!" Jayne insisted.

Mal smiled. "Actually, it is."

"Aww come on, Mal. It's not as good as Harry's but it's an option."

Zoe shook her head leaving the room. "You're right Jayne, it is an option. And yet, it's still gos se."

"You don't think my plan is gos se, do you Harry?" Jayne asked hopefully of the only one left.

"I don't think there's a good way for me to answer that," Harry replied. "But I'm right there with you, if you want to do it."

Harry was sitting in the pilot's chair in the cockpit, thinking to himself. Inara wouldn't be back for another couple days, and Mr. Universe still had to continue faking the interview and hiring process for all the fictional people Blue Sun was hiring. Harry had reread the Introduction letter Headmaster Fullerton wrote dozens of times and still wasn't sure what to make of it. If a significant amount of wizards left the Earth, then where did they go? There were mixed ships of muggles and wizards upon which they were theoretically forced to maintain the statute of secrecy. Harry ended up here, so it stands to reason that at the very least the primary line of hereditary Weasleys made it here as well. For some reason whichever Weasley was in possession of the Harry ring, they elected not to wake Harry. They didn't deem the situation severe enough. Or maybe they weren't capable of waking him for some reason. Maybe they were kidnapped, or unconscious, or in a coma. Harry was contemplating all the possibilities when he was jarred out of his musings.

"Harry!" Simon yelled. "What did you do to my sister?"

Harry looked up in the worried eyes of Dr. Tam and saw Kaylee standing over River shaking her. Harry tiredly realized he'd been daydreaming and looked at the clock, seeing it was evening already and about time for River's training. "What's a what?" Harry intelligently asked.

"What did you do to River?" Simon insisted. "She won't wake up."

Harry hopped up and saw River seemed perfectly fine and completely non-responsive. Harry rolled his eyes. "I was afraid of this. Don't worry Doc. This is no problem. I'll fix her right up for you. But give me at least," Harry paused and seemed to be calculating. "At least two hours before you even think about shaking us awake."

"What's happened?" Kaylee asked far gentler than Simon was about to.

Harry shook his head. "I'm not entirely sure, but I would guess she's tried to apply some of my methods to dealing with her own memories."

"That's good, though, isn't it?" Kaylee replied putting her hand over her boyfriend's mouth.

Harry snickered at how trusting Simon was of Kaylee. "Yes, it's good in theory. No, it's bad if she's not ready, because you can easily trap yourself in your own mind. Which is what she's done I'm guessing. She might have even locked herself in a trance or put her consciousness to sleep in her subconscious."

"So you can just go in and fix her. Why the two hours?" Kaylee continued as she was now pinching and shaking Simon's cheek.

Harry smiled at Simon and said, "Well, in case it's complicated, I don't want you to worry if it takes time. And if it's not complicated, I'm going to teach her to wake herself up and prevent this from happening again."

"Fair enough," Kaylee agreed. "Would we serve any good or bad purpose here?"

Harry shook his head. "Nope. It'll be boring to wait, and I'll let you know when she's back if you want to go. The Doc here may not wish to leave River's side, but she'll be fine."

"Thank you, Harry," Kaylee grinned and turned to her boyfriend.

Harry nodded his appreciation. "No problem, now if you don't mind, I'm going delve into Miss Tam's mind. And Doctor, seriously, you should bring your translator more often. I think our conversations are much more pleasant and clear with her around."

"I don't like you," Simon frowned.

Kaylee grinned and explained. "My boyfriend here is very grateful that you are able to help his sister, and very frustrated that he is unable to help his sister. He doesn't show his jealousy well, and it can come out harsher than he means."

Harry snickered.

"No, really. I don't like him," Simon told his girlfriend. "I don't like him at all!"

"Take good care of her, Harry," Kaylee chided and pulled her boyfriend away from Harry indicating he should begin helping River.

Harry took the signal and lifted up River's eyelids. With her current state, Harry tried simply mentally reciting the incantation and a few seconds later, settled himself into the nearby chair, appearing to the outside world, just as catatonic as River Tam.

Kaylee saw Harry sit back and seem to be completely unmoving in his stare towards River. She squeezed her boyfriend's hand and chirped, "That is so cool!"

Simon grumbled but squeezed her hand back. "It's not cool. It's freakish. It's unnatural. They don't move. They don't blink. They just sit here completely oblivious to the outside world. Occasionally I'll see an emotion on her face, a small smile, or a wince, nothing huge. And then it'll be gone and I'll wonder if I just imagined that movement. Or think it was just a muscle spasm."

Kaylee looked over and said, "You're cute when you whine like a child."

Simon frowned and considered whether he was more insulted or appreciative of the compliment. "Doesn't it seem odd to you?"

"Yes," Kaylee admitted with a grin. "Very."

"Doesn't it seem unbelievable?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Don't you think we should be worried more?"

Kaylee shook her head. "Nope. You're worried enough for the rest of us, including River."

Simon sighed in frustration. He watched Harry and River's bodies just sit there immobile as he was completely clueless on what they were doing and if it was helping his sister. "What about this job Harry came up with? What do you make of that?"

Kaylee shrugged. "It sounds great. I think it'll be fun."

"You don't find it convenient? Too easy? Too good to be true?"

"Maybe," Kaylee smiled at her boyfriend. "But I think those might be the… side effects of keeping Harry around. I know he annoys you and you're scared he's taking a liking to your sister. But so far he's been more than we could have hoped for, you know? He's helping River, and if this is what it takes to help her, I'm not sure anyone else even could have helped her. That last job was the best one we've had in over a year and it was easy and paid great. If Mr. Universe and him have an idea for another job that's easy and pays better than any of us could have expected, what's the point of thinking this is going to be the first time he finally lets us down?"

"I know," Simon frustratingly agreed. "I've just seen how much better River's been doing. For the past six months, I'd been lying to myself, convincing myself she wasn't getting worse when she was. And now to see her doing so well… it just feels like the other shoe is hanging there, waiting to drop."

"I know what you need," Kaylee stated calmly as she stood up to leave the bridge. "You need some monkey sex." She didn't say another word as she turned and walked back towards her bunk.

Simon couldn't stop the grin that split his face in two. He looked over at River and Harry and could have sworn he just saw River smile again. He got up and hurried after his girlfriend leaving the semi-unconscious pair alone.

Harry appeared by the tree he'd met River at in her mind's landscape. There was no sign of her anywhere. He focused on locating her and found himself unable to. Harry sighed, cursing his own lack of abilities at Legilimency and Occlumency. His childhood attempts at learning the skill were doomed from the beginning, and one of the main reasons he'd not put much effort into learning these particular mind arts. Harry had always looked down upon these forms of magic as they were so ripe for abuse and misuse. Harry hated the idea of there being a master key to unlock everybody's secrets. Primarily because so many of the people who had acquired the skill used it indiscriminately for even the most mundane of reasons. In wartime, it became something of an ugly necessity, as people lives were at risk. Much like the use of lethal force is sometimes called for, so is a certainty of truth, trust, and loyalty. But once the war was over, it was only the egos and the need for control that was at risk. And to Harry it was then just another gross violation of individuals' rights, freedoms, and privacy, and a violation that was nearly impossible to police.

Harry's endless lifelong study of magic did lead him back to the mind arts and Harry learned all he could about them, much like his studies into the darkest of black arts. But Harry's disposition made it so he could barely pass as a Master in both Occlumency and Legilimency. While most would consider that to mean he was quite gifted at it, for Harry's measure it was far from one of his strong points. He was never as skilled as Dumbledore, Riddle, or even Snape at either discipline and Harry took a small measure of comfort in that fact. Considering Harry seemed to be the only wizard left in the universe though, he could have been as dreadful now as he had been as a teenager and he still would have been miles ahead of everyone else. But right at this moment, he was slightly curious if perhaps those better at the mental arts would have been able to locate River inside her mind. Trying once more to suss out her location, Harry conceded that for now, it was still too chaotic in her head. Resorting to trial and error, Harry began popping around to the areas in her mind he'd already taken her. Having no luck, Harry tried targeting emotions and seeing if he could find anything.

Harry wasn't sure how long he'd been looking when he hit on the feeling of innocence and found River eyes closed with a smile, spinning on a child's playground. Harry hopped onto the merry-go-round and dove right into the memory that River was reliving. It was six year old little River with a paper hat on, opening presents for her birthday. Harry was immediately reminded of just who he was dealing with when she squealed in excitement to having received a collected works of Shakespeare in its original early modern English rather than the bastardized American spoken these days. Not exactly the typical gift to make a girl on her sixth birthday squeal in joy.

Harry took control of the memory and froze it in place. "You might be the youngest nerd I've ever met."

The six year old River looked around at the frozen action and up at Harry. "What are you doing here? You weren't invited to my party."

Harry rolled his eyes. "And you've gone and done something stupid."

River frowned as she quickly grew into the properly aged and dressed young woman she was. She was petulantly keeping her paper hat. "I've been sticking to happy memories, only times before I left the general education program."

"And just how would you know that they're from then?"

"I know," River insisted. "It's my mind and I make sure they're happy before viewing them. I've been categorizing and organizing them once I figured out how to group them easier."

"Really?" Harry raised an eyebrow. "Show me."

River nodded and the scenery shifted into a circular room with white stone floors and countless video monitors covering all the walls. Several had still images while others moved back and forth showing snippets of scenes not unlike wizarding pictures. River flourished with her arm, "These are all good memories. Nothing terribly fantastic and nothing bad. Just simply happiness."

The floor rumbled and descended like an elevator until they were in another circular room, again completely surrounded by video monitors, only all of these were turned off. "These will be less pleasant memories but I've been avoiding anything that will go in here."

The floor descended again and they were in a third circular room. This time they weren't any video monitors but glass walls and separate cages like a zoo.

Harry looked around and turned to River waiting for her explanation.

"This was my first idea for containing the triggers," River explained. "And I expect it will change as I understand them better, but I wanted them completely sealed off from all the other memories or thought processes unless I actively allowed them freedom. I was hoping you could help me capture and contain them."

The floor rumbled once more and rose very quickly taking the cheerful young woman in the paper hat and her amused instructor to the first circular room with the good memories on the video monitors. "All of these memories I've relived and placed here."

Harry nodded appreciatively. "Very impressive work. I see you're taking some of the concepts I've been telling you about and putting them into use for your own purposes."

"See?" River smiled victoriously. "I haven't gone and done something stupid."

"You've made leaps and bounds I wasn't expecting you to make yet. This is very good." Harry admitted. "Now, wake yourself up."

River stopped and clenched her eyes shut. She gritted her teeth in concentration. Cautiously, she peeked open one of her eyes and saw she hadn't actually done anything at all other then give Harry sufficient reason to smirk at her. "Oh."

"And there is the something stupid." Harry smugly announced.

"Would I not snap out of this on my own?" River asked.

Harry shrugged. "Probably. But unless you've got someone feeding you and giving you water, you could very well starve to death or die of dehydration before waking up."

"Oh."

Harry nodded. "I was minding my own business when your brother yelled at me, freaking out because you were completely non-responsive. Kaylee even slapped you a couple times."

"Really?"

"That's why, before you should be jumping into your own mind without a parachute, you need to learn to be aware beyond your own mind."

River frowned. "I'm usually a very light sleeper and wake up whenever anyone enters the room."

"I'm guessing that's because your wild reading talent senses them," Harry explained. "And you've relied on that instinct. I've been blocking that sense for you. Have you not been sleeping better since I've been around?"

River sighed and nodded. "Much better. Thanks for that by the way."

Harry grinned. "Happy to help. Even if it does give me the unpleasant job of being forced to share a bed with a young attractive woman."

River didn't care to continue that conversation and quickly asked, "So can you teach me to wake up and how to be aware outside of here?"

"I think I'd better," Harry agreed. "Though you really should be careful and warn me when you do this. Even knowing the memories are happy, there could be a trigger in happiness, and you could get locked into a loop in here for a very long time. In case you hadn't noticed time doesn't exactly flow normally inside your head."

"Let me guess," River asked. "It's been four hours?"

Harry shook his head. "Actually this time, I've not even been in here for an hour yet."

"Why has it always been around four hours?" River asked.

"I'm pretty sure each time is a little longer than the time before it," Harry explained. "Because what happens is that from here inside, it's almost like I'm at the other side of the ship in terms of the Occlumens shield I've got protecting you from wild reading."

"Oh thank god," River gasped. "So that's just me picking up on other's thoughts or memories."

"Yeah," Harry said with an odd look. "Why so grateful?"

"Do you remember what we saw at the end of the second four hour session?"

Harry nodded. "That's why I ended it. Your instincts are improving and my need to hold the shield is weakening, but when it breaks you just start reeling in the emotions and feelings all around you."

River nodded. "I could tell the first time you responded to that noseless demon thing. And then you did it again with Kaylee and the blonde girl."

Harry laughed, "I was responding to the fact that you were reading others again. In case you missed it, Simon was there and all the lascivious acts involving Kaylee came from his head."

River smiled lightly. "Your reactions led me to wonder."

Harry shook his head vigorously. "Don't get me wrong, Kaylee's adorable. But right now, possibly her most attractive quality is that she can easily control your brother. I doubt you'd be this far in your training if not for her." Harry grinned and added, "Not to mention the stick she removed."

River snickered a little at the reminder of her earlier description of her brother. "What about the red-eyed no nose thing? I can't help but notice that was around the time I was seeing a few of my own demons. Nor can I help but to point out that when I read Kaylee off my brother, I got that bug-eyed blonde from you."

"You sure that wasn't your brother too?" Harry attempted to deflect.

"Yes."

Harry redirected again and explained, "Excellent. Your senses are improving if you can tell easily which of us those came from. Not to mention your ability to identify and categorize your memories here are further examples of your reading instincts responding to your own control. We are well on our way."

River agreed with the praise but wasn't letting Harry off that easily. "Girlfriend or sister?"

"Truthfully he was a semi-normal man before his soul got corrupted and his physical features grew progressively more serpent-like."

"The blonde: girlfriend or sister?" River insisted with a smile.

Harry shrugged, "Can't it be both?"

River was enjoying Harry's discomfort. "I do hope you're not being coy for my benefit. Did she break your heart? Is she looking for you still?"

"Fine," Harry snapped. "The answers are neither, no, and no. Now let me show you how to get out of here."

River got the distinct feeling the blonde was dead, whoever she was.

"You need to…" Harry paused unsure how to explain this to a muggle. There were a variety of ways to do this, but Harry's preferred method was to cast a sort of mental Ennervate. For Harry, nothing else left him more aware immediately. The problem with this was that Harry's mage senses told him River had no magical core. He may as well have been trying to teach Dudley the summoning charm.

Harry didn't know how long he was lost in thought, when River asked loudly, "Harry?"

Harry shook his head and smiled deviously. "I've got an idea, and it's going to give you something to examine as well."

"Why don't you just teach me how to wake up?" River asked not liking the gleam in Harry's eye.

"Because I'm not really sure there's an easy way for you to do it," Harry explained. "So I'm going to do it for you."

"That doesn't help me any, Harry."

"Come here," Harry said grabbing River's hand and pulling them back to the first dusty path they'd ever found in River's mind. Harry held up his hand to stall River. He closed his eyes and was concentrating. River could feel her own head was tingling in an extremely odd way. It wasn't painful, and actually felt pretty good, but it was weird.

She saw Harry lower his hand and a small platform spiraled up as it grew out of the ground. When it reached to about the middle of River's stomach it stopped, and a bright red plastic button appeared.

Harry opened his eyes and smiled victoriously at River. "There you go. That's the button to wake you up."

"What?" River asked looking closely at the button.

Harry nodded. "It's a trigger. Like that phrase to put to sleep, or those video signals that trigger your trances. I tried to make as unobtrusive and noninvasive for you. A big red button inside your mind. You know your mind, so you must make the platform appear and then you can push the button whenever you want to wake up."

"You gave me another trigger?" River asked curiously. "I thought we were going to try and get rid of those."

Harry nodded, "We're going to break you of your responses to them, and here's a perfectly safe one, you can examine and test it all you want. And it also buys me time to figure out a good way to teach you how to wake up."

"Okay," River said looking all around the button on the pedestal in front of her. "Should I press it?"

"Any time you're ready to wake up," Harry answered.

River stood up and asked, "Weren't you going to teach me to be aware outside?"

"That's a kind of complicated splitting your consciousness process. I think you're going to be completely exhausted when you wake up, and should probably get some sleep. We can really kick the training into gear since you've already started constructing your library and trusting your mind's inclinations."

River nodded and asked something she'd been meaning to. "Does this mean I can be away from you for up to four hours now?"

Harry grinned. "As long as we're both on the ship, I bet it'll hold about that long. I wouldn't pressure it though, because if it fractures, it'll be like a flood on you."

River winced at the thought of how loud and painful a flood would be. "So I only have to see you every three hours or so?"

Harry shrugged. "We've got a lot of training to go, but yeah. I think you'd be okay with me just refreshing it every few hours. If you'd like you can even sleep in your own bed, and I'll drop by to strengthen it every couple of hours." Harry pondered and tapped his chin. "Of course now I'll need a new excuse for why Jayne and I stare at you in your sleep."

River narrowed her eyes having suspected as much. "Will this really work? Are we at this point already?"

Harry shook his head. "It's not going to be as quiet and strong as when I'm constantly around and constantly reinforcing it. But it should be enough that you don't need to follow me everywhere."

River frowned but was excited about the prospect.

"Like a lost puppy," Harry continued needling the young woman. "I guess that might be why you're such a bit-"

River cut Harry off from saying anything more by slamming her hand down on the red button, waking her up instantly.

Harry leaned back in fright as River lunged forward up from the bed with a loud gasp.

River was panting as she jerkily looked around the room. "Did you just give me a shot of adrenaline?"

Harry winced at her rapid winking and asked, "Too much?"

River nodded fiercely, staring at Harry with wide eyes. "I think we could tone it down a notch or twelve."

"Sorry," Harry admitted. "I'll recalibrate it next time, but it may have been because you slammed on the button so hard."

"Really?" River asked having resumed normal breathing, even if she was talking a bit fast. "Because I wouldn't think that that would be something I could affect. I'd have thought the triggers were like switches, either on or off. Not murky middle ground with degrees of on."

Harry knew how exhausted she had to be. She'd blown way past his expectations and had made huge strides towards controlling her mind. But considering the amount of mental exercise building those rooms and organizing those memories undoubtedly took, she very well may sleep for the next twenty four hours or more. "Well then perhaps you should take a closer look at the trigger I made for you next time. Here drink this water, and let me get you some food. You're probably going to pass out from exhaustion."

River took the water and downed it, while Harry dropped some ham cubes on a small dish. She saw Harry's frantic hurried motions and popped a couple cubes in her mouth, idly wondering why Harry had ham cubes with him. "I think you're overreacting here, Harry." She popped another cube in and chewed it up, wondering when she developed a taste for ham, because these were tastier than she remembered. "I don't even feel a little bit tired."

Harry waved her to keep eating and added, "That would be the adrenaline still."

"Oh," River replied as she fell into a dead sleep sitting up on the bed. She'd actually managed to toss one last ham cube towards her face. It missed her mouth but hit her cheek with enough force to finally knock her limply onto her back with a fwump.

Harry tucked her into the bed and vanished the remaining ham cubes. He remembered what Kaylee had said to Simon when they left the room and decided not to drop in on them. Taking the diplomatic and hopefully safe route, Harry pressed on the intercom to their bunk. "Kaylee? Doc?" He asked hopefully and waited for a response.

"Harry!" Kaylee's voice called back, while there was a muffled mating call in the distance. "Be quiet, Simon! It's probably news about your sister!"

Harry just winced, grateful he hadn't gone down to their room. He heard Simon stumbling and running closer to the intercom, yelling out "River? River, is that you?"

"Yes, Simon, it's me," Harry sarcastically replied. "My mind broke and I lost my voice, so Harry's lending me his."

"Don't move!" Simon called out franticly. "I'm coming up there now!"

"Hang on!" Harry yelled back while Kaylee called out, "Put some pants on at least!"

A sheepish yelp could be heard and some more scrambling.

Harry took advantage of the delay. "Doc! Wait! You don't have to come up here. River's fine. She woke up briefly. I gave her a glass of water and got her to eat just a little bit of food. Now she's done a lot of mental work, and is probably going to be sleeping for a long time. Like a day, maybe. I'm sure you'll want to check her out, but she'll be fine. This is normal. Just let her get some rest."

"That's great, Harry," Kaylee called back. "Isn't that good news, honey?"

Simon agreed but insisted on checking River right away. He felt guilty enough leaving her alone for this long.

"He's coming your way, Harry," Kaylee ruefully explained as she watched her boyfriend sprint out of the room.

"Alright," Harry replied. "I hope that monkey sex put him in a better mood."

Kaylee gulped but giggled. "I take it you heard that?"

Harry nodded. "It took all my strength not to start making faces or sounds in an effort to freak your boyfriend out. He's not sure if we smile or not. Lordy. Oh, here he comes. I'll try and send your lesser half back as soon as possible."

Kaylee just smiled as she scooted back from the intercom and got comfy on her bed.

"What is it?" Simon asked. "What's going on?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Feel free to examine her. She's completely asleep and will be for a while, but if you really wanted to wake her you can."

Simon was kneeling next to her, checking her pulse. "What did you do? What happened?"

"I found her. She was going through memories like I expected. But she didn't know how to wake up, nor was she aware at all of any external stimuli, like you and Kaylee trying to wake her up. It's a dangerous thing for her to do, as she won't be aware she's in pain or on fire, if she's that singularly focused. When I'm in control and teaching her, it's fine, because my attention is on the outside world as well as her mind. She still hasn't learned how to split her focus and remain aware, but I implanted a trigger in her-"

"You did what!" Simon yelled before forgetting River was sleeping right next to him. She moaned and rolled to the other side, still out like a light.

"I set up a trigger to give her a jolt of adrenaline. This way she goes to the trigger, pushes a button, and wakes up. So she can at least wake herself up now." Harry explained. "She did a lot of work, and slammed her hand down on the button. The jolt was bigger than she or I expected, so she was a bit hyper before conking out like a light. I knew she was going to be asleep for a long time, so I tried to get her to drink or eat what little sustenance she could."

Simon could tell she wasn't in the same odd trance she had been earlier as she responded to pokes and had rolled over in her sleep. And he had to agree with Harry's assessment.

"She's going to rest for a while now," Harry continued. "If you want to move her to her own bed, or to your infirmary, we can, but all she needs is sleep. That's why I'd recommend just leaving her here, and coming in to check on her whenever your overprotective brother streak urges you to."

Simon just nodded and seemed to be struggling with himself. "Thank you," Simon quietly said with difficulty.

Harry restrained himself from laughing and pointing and accepted Simon's gratitude. "You're welcome. Now if you don't mind I think I want to get some food, and I think Kaylee's up for some more monkey sex with you."

Simon tried his best not to show any response to that remark at all. His face was flush but he was acting as dignified as he could. "Good night, Harry."

"Night Doc," Harry chirped to the blushing man as he left the bridge. "I'll let you know when River wakes up." Harry gave River another quick look, strengthened the mind shield around her, and headed towards the kitchen to grab a bite to eat.