A/N: Nothing since May, really? My apologies to all who faved and subscribed, or have simply been waiting for an update to bring this story to the top of the page. I know how hard it is to keep your interest in a story that goes so long between chapters. I plead the usual lame excuse of overcommitment: writing several fics at once, as well as contributing to a collab on Cyborg Central. But this story is much on my mind, and I'll do my best to bring in subsequent chapters in a more timely manner.

6.

Willamina's parents had intended her burial to be a small and quiet affair. The family had given her up for dead and mourned her loss years before, and a big public funeral would only pull open old wounds, they thought. And if that gan ni niang who had destroyed her young life had an eye or ear of some sort beyond the border of the Woods – and how else could he have scouted his victims and taken them without being caught or even noticed? Then the manner and means of her finding needed to be kept close.

But space shuttles didn't travel the sky over Millersburg every day. Farmers are early risers; when one of the little doodlebugs belonging to that tramp ship parked at the Fryes' lifted at first light and beelined into the Woods, folks were discussing it over their morning coffee at cafés and kitchen tables, and watching for its return. When it reappeared just an hour later, too soon for a round trip to anywhere but someplace inside the big forest, a goodly portion of the neighborhood began speculating about the Fryes' long-lost daughter. But when James Frye was seen to make sudden visits to his pastor and the family undertaker, speculation narrowed to a single possibility.

Throughout the day, old neighbors made calls at the Frye place, asking the question, and offering sympathy. Jim told them, stiff-faced, that she had been found in the Woods by prospectors, and appeared to have died of natural causes shortly after her disappearance. He thanked them for their concern, and told them there would be no public service. He accepted the customary casseroles and cakes from the neighborhood matrons and made the appropriate remarks. Yes, it would be a relief to see her laid to rest at last. No, there was no sign of foul play, and no evidence of any connection to the Woodsman, as folks had taken to calling the two-legged predator who had taken so many young women and little girls a dozen years before.

"I don't know what we're going to do with all this food," declared Missus Frye as she accepted another covered dish from her husband in the kitchen. "Cold store is full to bursting arready. Can't give it away – even if we weren't expected to return the dishes, word would get back to the folks gave it to us. It would be like slapping away a helping hand."

"Ayuh." He regarded his wife somberly, realizing that talk would make its way from one end of the Woods to the other, regardless of how they handled the situation. "Guess there'll have to be a wake after all."

-0-

Willamina Frye's wake was held the next day, and like the welcome-back party for the Hensons, took place under canvas in the yard between house and shop, adjoining the trees of the Frye woodlot. There were differences: the gathering was held in daylight, scheduled from midday till after suppertime, to unload two meals into the guests before departing. No spirits were served, and no music or dancing offered. Talk and food were the only diversions. And the guest of honor was absent: the girl's remains rested in a cold drawer awaiting an official verdict at the town undertaker's, which doubled as the county morgue and the coroner's office. In the casket's customary place was a side table with a collection of captures, the most recent taken at Mina's fourteenth birthday party. Mal reflected that the young boys gathered around her in the scene were all grown men now, some already raising families, and one of them might have become the pretty little redhead's husband and father to her children, if Fate had been kinder.

He shifted in his seat as he listened to the latest eulogy, this one delivered by Miss Halleck, one of Willamina's teachers. The old biddy stood near the table of captures praising her grades, her perfect behavior in class, and her willingness to help others who were struggling. Mal got the impression that Mina had done more teaching in that classroom than Miss Halleck, who seemed to hold keeping order above stimulating young minds in her estimation.

All the praise and reminiscences about the girl, Mal noted, ended before her kidnapping, as if the broken creature that had haunted the Frye home for a year after Kaylee's return had never existed – even though the proof of it sat at the table nearest the memorial, taking in every word. Will Frye sipped his apple juice and listened, ignoring the occasional glances sent his way, and concentrated on the speakers as they filled in the backstory of the mother he had never known.

Eventually it was time for the family pastor to stand and say some words. Mal shifted again, wishing he was somewhere else. But the Fryes had been kind to him and his people, and he owed them courtesy. The food was good, at least.

But his jaw flexed as he listened to the empty platitudes, delivered by a man who seemed to not even know the girl he was supposed to be talking about. The Shepherd could have done a better job than this, he thought. But Shepherd Book sat across the table, looking every bit as uncomfortable as Mal was.

Only about half the ship's complement was present. Zoë and Wash held down the table with him and Book; Kaylee sat with her family. But Inara, once again, was off on 'ambassadorial' duty, some Core Worlder shindig she'd been invited to days before and couldn't get out of. River was buttoned up tight aboard the ship, Mal judging it too risky to have her among so many strangers without her brother to tend to her, in case she did something alarming. Simon and Jayne, of course, were still out playing Indian. Right now, he wished mightily that he was there with them.

-0-

River Tam sat cross-legged on the somewhat dusty floor of Serenity's secondary bridge, accessible by descending a steep ladderlike stairway between the pilot and copilot consoles. The snug space, originally designed as a docking control station, was mostly stripped of its equipment, but still offered a hundred-and-eighty-degree view through the big forward windows. She stretched out an arm and touched one, feeling the rising heat of the day trying to work its way through the polarized glass. The lower edges of the bottom panels were somewhat fogged from a thousand reentries, but still clear enough to make out the gathering among the trees off to the left. She let her mind drift, taking in the muted sounds of the idle ship, and reaching out to the world around her. Even with her Kaylee filters in place, the thoughts of a few of the people under the tent were sharp enough to hear above the murmur.

I stole a kiss from her the day she was taken. She promised me a dance at the end-of-school party…

I wish I had known her.

This poor family has been through so much.

Why didn't I send Matt with them? Or go myself? I'd heard about the other children gone missing. Did I think our little corner of the world was too quiet and happy for something like that?

Dear Lord, I thought I was past this. Oh, my poor poor babe…

I'd love to put a noose around the neck of the bastard myself, and pull the lever too.

I don't belong here…

A little dicktease who flirted with every man in town was bound to come to a bad end. Fucked her crazy, did he? And seeing what a little tramp the younger one turned out to be, I reckon he taught her a thing or two too… That one had a greasy feel to it that made her wipe her palms on her thighs.

She's all alone in there. An instant's glimpse of the ship from under the tent, and a feeling of hunger.

There should have been a brigade of Federal troops combing the Woods the day these kids were taken. But they weren't some Core World businessman's brats, so their lives weren't important enough.

Another glimpse of the ship in her mind's eye; something about the image told her it came from the same person who had looked this way before. Then, a sense of a decision being made, and rising excitement. I can do it. I have to. I just can't let anyone see me leave, or know where I've been.

A minute later, she saw a figure emerge from the tent, headed across the field toward her. River saw what was in his hands, and read his intent. He looked up at the bridge, and saw her at the window. She quickly climbed the stairs and left the bridge.

-0-

With his meal tended to and the preacher droning on, Mal's attention – and his eyes – began to wander. He looked over the crowd, which seemed to be paying scant attention to the man. The captain wondered how many of those present had known the girl, how many were here out of courtesy to a neighbor, how many were simply curious. Even Will seemed restless now. Mal's eyes strayed outside the open tent, through the trees to where Serenity was parked in the field near the salvage yard. From this position, her bow and most of her port side were visible; again, he remembered her as she was when he had come upon her in the junkyard on Boros. He felt a sudden impatience to be aboard. That was where he really wanted to be, seeing to repairs and getting her back out into the sky. The Fryes were fine folk, but his people had had plenty of time to sniff the air… He closed his eyes, imagining himself aboard, in space or on a world too remote for the Alliance's interest. Even on a world as bucolic as New Home, he could sense the Alliance's smothering presence covering the planet like a second atmo shield –

Wash, sitting beside him, said, "Mal, uhh…"

The captain opened his eyes and followed his pilot's gaze across the field. His brow creased. "Shuh muh?"

There was a dark oval in Serenity's drawn-up ramp: the little-used personnel door, now standing open. "How long?"

"I don't know," the pilot said. "I haven't been looking that way either."

Mal said, low and tense, "Anybody see her around?"

"No," said Zoë, rising. Wash and Book got up as well.

"Quiet, now," Mal said. "Move slow, we don't want to spook anybody. Zoë, check the house. I'll go to the barn, maybe she had an urge to pet another cow. Wash-"

"I'm going to the ship." The Shepherd rounded the table.

Mal nodded. "Good idea. See if she's still in there."

The old man flicked him a flat glance. "And if she's alone."

That was when he remembered that not all the people on New Home were good folks. "Maybe we should do that first." He started out of the tent with Book, but when he was out in the open, he stopped short, looking up at the ship. "Seven hells."

With a faint hum, the portside shuttle was sliding smoothly out of the bay on its cradle, as if preparing for launch.

-0-

The knock at the personnel door was light and hesitant, just a single knuckle against the steel – as if the person on the other side didn't really expect the door to be answered, or was perhaps afraid that it would be. River undogged the hatch and pulled it up and open, struggling with its weight, and stood in the doorway as she let it bang against the drawn-up inner ramp.

Rosh stood looking up at her, a napkin-covered serving plate in his hands. "I know you want to keep to yourself, and I'm sure you've got good reasons. But it just didn't seem right, surrounded by all that good food, knowin you were stuck in here with nothing but that feioo in your lockers." He stretched his hands up through the angled doorway, proffering the tray.

River reached toward it with one hand. But instead of taking the plate, she whisked off the napkin and studied the mound of food that lay under it. "I can't eat this."

"Oh." He started to draw the tray back. "I didn't-"

"It's too much. You'll have to help me." She took the tray and stepped back to let him through. "Qing jin."

They ate, not in the galley, but in the number-two shuttle, looking out the un-occluded half of its window at the Frye homestead; unlike the bridge, with its big flat windows that showed everything inside, they could watch here in semi-darkness without anyone seeing in, though the view was more restricted. The tent's top was visible, surrounded by the treetops of the woodlot, but the gathering beneath it was masked by the drive pod extender beneath them. They shared the plate, each of them with a hand gripping its rim, him using a fork and her with chopsticks. Rosh said, "So. Peace offering accepted?"

"Accepted." She took another morsel and swallowed it. "But that wasn't the first reason you came here."

The plate bobbed. "Look, Miss Tam, you don't-"

"I wasn't the lonely one," she said. "You were." She went on, "You can be surrounded by people and still be all alone. Even if some of them love you. I know." She turned half toward him. "You were too young for girls when she was taken and returned. And she was lost before you started flirting with Kaylee. You never knew her. You don't feel like family, sitting with them right now. You can't share their pain."

"Ayuh," he said quietly. He turned back to the window. "It's a mite better, watching this way. Up above, from a distance. Your troubles seem a little smaller, somehow."

"I love going out on the hull when we're in space," River said. "The stars look close enough to touch, and they fill the sky. My brother never even looks out the window. He feels like the stars are judging him." A dimple creased the corner of her mouth. "Sometimes, I don't think he's all right in the head." She wondered what Simon was doing now. Since she had woken in the cryo box, she had seldom been far from him, and his thoughts were nearly always with her. But he had left her behind to go on an errand of mercy – or, perhaps, a quest of honor for his lady love – and his voice was not one of the ones whispering to her now. Whatever he was doing presently, it must not involve much thinking.

"Stars," Rosh said. "Just little points of light, huh? Like a flashlight beam pointed at you?"

She glanced at the boy, frowning. New Home's atmo shield scattered even the brightest sources of light from space, but the Fryes repaired spaceships… "Have you ever taken a trip in a spaceship?"

"Nuh," he said. "This is as far off the ground as I ever been."

She let go of her side of the plate. "Do you wanna?" She moved to the pilot's chair and sat.

"You know how to fly this?" He said, awestruck and a little afraid.

"Let's find out." River closed her eyes and threw a few mental switches, and the world about her changed subtly. She was aware of the young man beside her in a different way: his maleness moved to the forefront of her perception of him, enticing and challenging her. She found herself looking for a way to compliment him, and stifled the impulse. Rosh Frye wasn't a client, and she had called for this set of filters for a very different reason.

Eyes still closed, she reached out to the control wheel in front of her, running her fingertips over it, searching. Then she rotated the grips a hundred and eighty degrees, turning it upside down and positioning it considerably lower than its normal arrangement. "She began flight instruction as a child," she murmured. "Like everything they taught her that required practice to achieve mastery. She couldn't reach the wheel at first, so she flipped it. After years holding it like that, it didn't feel right any other way, even when she got older and had to hunch a little to use it."

In her mind's eye, she saw hands not her own on the other controls as the little ship glided through the sky. The instruments were familiar now, their readings no longer a mystery. She opened her eyes and looked at the board before her. It was a little different from her borrowed memories, but the layout and uses were very clear. She touched a switch, and the shuttle vibrated. Light flooded the cockpit as the little ship slid sideways out of its bay.

"What are we doing?" Rosh said.

River smiled. "We're going for a ride."

-0-

Mal started forward, only to be checked by Zoë's hand on his forearm. "Wave," she said.

"Somebody's-"

"Wave." She added, "Sir. Just a little one." She tipped a head toward the tent, and lifted her hand in a short wave.

He got her meaning then. The shuttle was gone for now, regardless of who had taken it, and there were reasons not to let on that its departure was unplanned. He raised his hand in a farewell gesture as the little vehicle lifted smoothly off Serenity's port extender, pivoted, and ascended into the hazy sky.

"Inara, by the handling," Wash said. "But why did she come back to trade shuttles?"

Zoë said, "Did you see the starboard shuttle come in? Or hear it?"

"Inara would have waved the ship first, and River would have called. Ah, zhe zhen shi ge kuai le de jin zhan." Mal felt the muscles under his ears jump. He resumed his walk to the ship. "Right now, I'm visiting the notion of draggin that cryo box out of storage."

-0-

"So that's what they look like," Rosh said in a hushed voice. "And Jove…Wo de tien, ah." He laid a hand on the back of the pilot's chair where River sat and leaned far over to bring his face close to the glass, twisting it around. "Where's the sun?"

River touched a control, and the view turned, centering Yellow Sun in the glass. "There."

"That little light there? It seems a lot brighter from the ground."

"You can't see it from the ground, except sometimes at night. It's just a beacon and an anchor. Your heat comes mostly from Jove, and daylight comes from satellites orbiting above us. Even if the star wasn't so far away, New Home has a two-hundred-hour rotational period, tidelocked to the gas giant. It wouldn't be easy to live on."

"You're as smart as you are pretty," he said. "But knowing too much about a thing can spoil it." He leaned lower, his cheek just touching her hair and his lips an inch from her ear. "Ain't the stars s'posed to be romantic?"

River's breath caught. For an eyeblink of time, she was in a warm board-walled room filled with sweet-smelling hay, dust motes solidifying the shaft of light coming in the open window high on the wall, a teenage boy with Rosh's face, smiling as he lowered himself onto her. A pair of voices murmured warnings in her mind: not yet, let it build, said one; not here, not him, said the other. One was Inara's, but River was unsure whether the other was Kaylee's or her own.

She reached for the controls again. Rosh groped instinctively for a handhold as the ship nosed down to point at the little world's surface. She smiled and placed two fingertips on her lips. "We're not falling."

"Right, I knew that," he said, staring down at the surface twenty miles below and holding tight to the grab bar.

"See the terminator? The shadow line. It's not perpendicular to the plane of the sun."

The boy relaxed his grip, and stared raptly once more. "Gorry. It's sure not like a map. Not even weather vids. It's like the stars, you feel like you could reach through the glass and touch it."

The shuttle's orbit was low, and counter to the little world's artificial day/night cycle; they approached the terminator swiftly and crossed it, and the ship was plunged into darkness. River noted the scarcity and dimness of lights on the surface below, comparing it to Osiris, whose nightside was jeweled with city lights lining the river valleys and clustering around the softly glowing lakes.

A babble of voices rose up at her, and she shortened her reach until only Rosh's thoughts impinged on her mind. Her breathing roughened at those thoughts, and she tightened her control further until they faded.

"River?" He said. "Is something…"

They crossed the terminator; daylight off the ship's surfaces made them blink, and the world below them flared with color. At this height, the works of Man were invisible by daylight roads and buildings, at least; farm country was a different shade of green, its texture even and uniform. They passed over their takeoff point, and she resolutely closed her mind to whatever mental or emotional storm was swirling below. Jayne's voice came to her – in memory, not mindwave – saying, You wanna do somethin, better to ask forgiveness later than permission before.

A vast expanse of woodland approached from over the horizon, and she knew they were about to overfly the Wood.

Jayne and Simon were down there somewhere under the canopy, and her knowledge of orbital mechanics told her the shuttle would pass over not far from their previous night's position. She wondered how they were feeling, and what they were thinking. If they were in danger, she thought she would sense it no matter how far away they were or how tightly she was filtering, but…

The sunset call relating Mina's discovery two days ago had brought Kaylee's family to tears and tight embraces, but River sensed deep anguish on the other side of the com connection as well: anger, frustration, and fear for the missing child. Last night's call, after the tormented girl's body had been recovered and a wake announced for the next day, had been muted and filled with things unsaid – at least, to those without the ears to hear the rest of the conversations. She was still trying to process it all, but it seemed to her that the hunting party was on the verge of an explosion of some sort.

The mottled green of the Wood now filled the view. It suddenly occurred to River that she might be closer to Jayne and Simon at this moment than she had been since their departure. She cautiously loosened her control, listening.

Voices coming from below were few and faint and mostly scattered. They came from people engaged in routine tasks, hunting and gathering, digging and building things that she was sure were temporary. Visitors come for a purpose, not settlers come to make a home.

She flushed as a feeling of warmth suffused her, followed immediately by an image: herself, dancing, not at a recital back home but in the hold of Serenity. She was subtly changed, more graceful and beautiful than reality, shining with an inner light. The vision faded as quickly as it had appeared, and River smiled. Jayne, or Simon. One of them is thinking of me.

"River? Are you okay?"

"Yes," she said. "I'm wonderful. Sometimes I forget."

The view before the windows was still the dark mottled green of the Wood. How would the hunting party find a single man and child in all that wilderness? There wasn't a forest half so large on all of Osiris, she thought, despite its reputation as a nature conservancy. She doubted any of the Central Worlds had a plot of unmanaged land this size. There were a great many parks, but few places that had simply been left to nature-

River's hands jerked on the inert control yoke as she was bombarded with a series of disturbing sensations: a feeling of hunger, deliberately left unfulfilled, savoring the withholding of final satisfaction, like a predator in the habit of playing with its food, a cat batting a squeaking mouse between its paws. River had felt something similar twice before: once at a campfire alone with Zoë, when four men had accosted them intending a night of rape, robbery, and murder; and once before that, when Serenity had been boarded by a bounty hunter named Jubal Early. The feeling passed, leaving her feeling cold and dirty.

Immediately after, she was pierced by a hot needle of fear. An image rose in her mind: a big man, looking down on her as he walked behind, a huge knife in his hand. The image disappeared, leaving her shocked and short of breath.

"River!" Rosh's hands were on her shoulders, steadying her as she slumped in the pilot's seat. "River, what's wrong?"

"Much," she said. "But one thing is right." She busied herself at the controls, preparing for a landing.

-0-

Wash's voice came over the intercom, echoing off the hard steel walls of the hold. "Shuttle's coming in, docking portside."

Mal touched the send button. "She call?"

"Just the automated stuff, no voice. Maybe it's not her."

"It's her." He disconnected and made his way up the stair to the catwalk leading to the portside shuttle dock. He'd been trading waves with Port Control for better than half an hour, trying to talk them out of grounding the shuttle and fining him into poverty for all the traffic rules the crazy girl had bent or broken. Mind, nothing she had done had been hazardous to herself or anyone else - it had all been feioo like calling for permissions and filing flight plans, but bureaucrats took such things to heart.

At the hatch, he squared his shoulders and steeled himself. The last time he had met River at the shuttle dock had been an unexpected and mighty unsettling experience. She had been channeling Inara then, too, and her greeting had made him leery of getting within arm's length of her for weeks afterward. Things were going to have to go different this time. He had decisions to make, and she had better be prepared to answer for her behavior without … engaging in distractions.

He heard the whine of the shuttle's engines, growing louder, then winding down as it settled onto its perch on the extender, touching down with a soft bump that he felt faintly through his boot soles. Then the hum of the cradle drawing the boat into the ship. The light above the hatch indicated docking and, a moment later, the equalizing of pressure. He could hear the shuttle's hatch creak as it was pulled open, and saw the handle of Serenity's turn. He drew a breath as the door swung open.

Rosh Frye stood in the hatchway, looking a little frazzled, and possibly grateful to be back on terra firma – at least, until he spied Mal waiting. The boy's mouth dropped open, and he swallowed. "Sir, I – nothing happened, I mean, I didn't know, we just…" He lapsed into silence, awaiting judgment.

Mal said, "She alone in there?"

Rosh gave a jerky nod.

Mal gave a sideways toss of the head. "Gun ku ku."

The boy sidled past. "Sir, I never laid a hand on her."

"All that protestin just tells me how hard you were thinkin about it," Mal said. "Go on, I said." As Rosh's feet clumped down the stairs, Mal went through the hatch in search of trouble.

He found River still in the pilot's seat, staring out the window at the treetops and the tent sheltering the wake, which was wrapping up. "River," he said, his ill mood replaced by unease at her quiet manner.

She turned to look at him. "I found him." She shivered.

Mal scowled. "Who?"

"The man with the girl." She looked back out the window. "And when I go up again, I can lead them to him."

16