-Firefly-
Clarity, restored to her, was an overwhelming burden, painful in its unfamiliarity. They were jagged moments, made so by their crystal-sharp vividness and their propensity for disappearing, leaving her high up and tumbling back into the cluttered darkness she had been occupying for so long. Each time Simon slid more of his gift into the maze of veins within her, she was given sight so sharply clear it made her reel in shock and pieces of understanding and the memories of what it was to laugh.
His silver blood, transfused to wake his-River from stasis, flowed through her, swept her along in a quicksilver current that eddied and pooled around her, tugging at her to come and play, then abandoning her in a wilderness that boiled with nausea and the chains of confusion, the weight of which she had once been so familiar with and now chafed against more and more every time they claimed her once again.
Sometimes, it was her actions that were given clarity, making her every move precise and graceful and purposeful, able to walk where she wanted to go, draw what she wanted to draw, join the people she wanted to spend time with. Other times, it was her thoughts that were given a tiny slice of piercing understanding, allowing her to follow a thought from point to point in a logical pattern, developing a straight line within her consciousness that guided her mind from observation to question to conclusion without making detours.
And then, occasionally, it was the voices-that-weren't that were given strength and clarity.
Usually, the injections Simon gave her hushed the voices, thrust a veil between River and other, granting her the chance to remember who she was without being buffeted and influenced by who everyone else was. It let her laugh and play and not panic when Kaylee chased her to laughingly take the apple from her hands. It let her be a real girl, one who could taste apples and teach Kaylee simple games and allow Inara to brush out her hair and tentatively sit beside Wash to run her hands over the dinosaurs he gleefully introduced her to. A girl who could smile at Simon and take his hand to lead him from his infirmary and tug him to the cargo bay where she and Kaylee and Wash waited to throw a ball to him.
But once, when she had almost grown to expect a piece of lucidity gift-wrapped just for her, the liquid didn't shine with its usual silver potency in her mind but instead surged with cloudy power somewhere deep in her psyche. And then, like a sleeper agent within her, Simon's gift didn't dull the voices—it sharpened them, made them louder, stronger, assaulting her with all the force of a cosmic storm, threatening to sweep all the new-found, newly remembered River away into an ocean of nightmares that now seemed even more terrifying in comparison to the good moments.
The voices whispered at her constantly, even in sleep, dampened only by Simon's soothers or when she was out amongst the stars themselves, but now, suddenly, they were more than sounds only she could hear, more than secrets she didn't want to know and insights she hadn't earned. They were given substance and weight and pressure so that she almost thought she had entered the Black without a spacesuit on, oppressed by a vacuum that was really filled with too much for her to see, to comprehend, to be able to equate or quantify.
All she could do was ride it out, let it swirl and eddy around her, flow with the high tide, wait for the liquid silver to run its course and leave her behind. But then Simon took her hand, ready to lead her to dinner, and she was drowning, no longer able to ride it out or wait for it to pass.
Simon's thoughts obliterated her. There was only him/her/them, only Simon/River/Simon, the tiny seed that was her sandwiched between everything that was him.
No shelves, no rows, no boxes, because that wasn't the way Simon saw himself. Only her, the warmth of her slender hand in his/hers, worry at how cool her skin was to the touch. A brief memory of swimming in the lake at the summer party they'd held on their estate on Ariel-the-hopsital-he'd-visited-the-hospital-they'd-robbed-tiny-room-knee-on-a-throat-don't-think-about-it, the cool water slipping around him/her and stinging his/her eyes when River-his-sister-young-brilliant-beautiful-annoying-brat splashed him/her with laughter as graceful as her dancing. The corridor, the steps to lead them to the common area, passing hope that Jayne-saved-them-helped-them-didn't-leave-them-behind-maybe-more-than-previously-thought-still-irritating didn't choose to make a scene tonight. River-his-sister-spinning-in-the-grass-feeding-him-berries-crying-in-the-night-hadn't-been-fast-enough-have-to-adjust-a-new-soother-help-her-sleep-give-her-peace seemed calm, so maybe the dinner would go smoothly, but on the other hand, her apparent placidity worried him/her. It made it seem as if he/she were leading a doll-like-the-type-sitting-on-River's-shelves-the-ones-passed-over-in-exchange-for-his/her-textbooks, not his/her living, breathing sister, her eyes somewhat startlingly hollow-too-much-like-when-she-erupted-from-cryo-stasis-woke-from-nightmares-didn't-recognize-him/her. Simon/River/Simon tried to pretend the tiny knot in the pit of his/her stomach wasn't really there, tried to focus on the good things, on the scent that actually smelled good thanks to Book-working-in-the-kitchen-a-comforting-hand-on-his/her-shoulder-a-steady-voice-reminder-of-the-Shepherds-visiting-the-hospital-in-Capitol-City-took-care-of-River-kind-to-her, on the smiles from Kaylee-beautiful-warm-inviting-enigmatic-simple-straightforward-a-siren's-call-he/she-couldn't/can't-follow-feel-of-her-hand-on-his/her-cheek-admiration-in-her-compelling-eyes-so-afraid-she'll-see-through-him/her-leave-him/her-behind-like-everyone-else, or the byplay he'd seen already starting between Wash-friendly-concern-worried-about-them-he-smiles-and-plays-with-River and Zoe-uncertainty-might-shoot-him/her-if-ordered-gave-River-her-boots.
The little bit of River still aware shook inside herself, hoarding the shards-that-were-her possessively, protectively, heedless of the slices they left on her inner self, frantic that she not lose them to the inundation of all-things-Simon—she had so little that the thought of losing it was enough all on its own to make her gibber and shake with terror and loss. Outwardly, she flinched away from her brother's touch when he helped her sit down, knew he didn't notice because he was turning to pull out Kaylee's chair for her.
And then Simon was gone, but that wasn't a good thing because now it was all Mal, trampling her beneath the stark bluntness of his strength, the terrifying brutality of his memories, the oppressive simplicity of his wants. And then Inara, so alien to the River being crushed, so calm and in control, so ruled by passion. And Jayne—afraid and bitter and almost innocent, in a way, behind his ruthlessness—and Book—hiding, oh, he was hiding so much, but hiding it more from himself than anyone else—and Kaylee—so full of dreams and hopes and joys that there was little room for calculation and suspicion, but so much fear there, too, lurking beneath it all, fear of disappointment, and insecurities that made her fragile—and Zoë—too severe, too haunted, softened, rounded, enlightened by her husband—and Wash—truly innocent, yet even he had a past and jealousy and anxieties, his thoughts centered around Zoë and Serenity, all else fading before those—and Mal and Inara and Jayne and Book and Kaylee and Zoë and Wash and Mal and…
And each one looking around at the others, their images superimposed one over another so that she—and who was she now? was there even a her left anymore?—saw each of them the way everyone else saw them, and it was too much, far too much for her mind to hold all at once, no matter what alterations had been made.
She screamed, then, just to prove that there was still a River, just to check whether she could still move her own body or whether the scream would emerge from everyone else's throats. It was a high, shrill scream that pierced more than it carried, and maybe silence fell before it, but River couldn't hear the silence, or the scream, not through her own ears, only through the minds of everyone else at the table. And when she dared to unsqueeze her eyes and try to look about, she almost fainted at the dizzying swirl of Mal looking at River-tiny-girl-hurt-so-badly-by-the-vaunted-Alliance-trouble-not-her-fault-trouble, and Inara looking at River-poor-girl-so-badly-haunted-should-be-something-she/she-can-do, and Jayne looking at River-moon-brained-scream-whistled-right-through-him/her-can't-know-doesn't-know-money-too-good-cut-her-brain-up, and Wash looking at River-poor-kid-glad-she-has-her-brother-to-help-hope-she-gets-better, and—and—and—and—
She screamed again because River wasn't looking at River; River was looking at the others, but the others were looking at River, and River's thoughts were subsumed beneath the others and soon there would be nothing left but a blank shell, hollowed out and cast away, an empty doll with a porcelain face that never moved, and then what would Simon do?
"Make it stop! Make it stop!" Nine pairs of ears heard a plate clatter to the deck; eight pairs of eyes saw a young girl throw up hands and arms to cover her eyes and ears, trying to blot out her surroundings as she curled into a hunched circle and rocked back and forth.
Simon put a hand on her back, knelt before her—she knew because she saw his perception change when he lowered himself, could feel the texture of her dress under his hand and the pressure of his hand on her back—and put his arms around her as he'd done so many times, blocking her off from the rest of reality, walling her in, a frame to remind her of who she was.
His mind was an oft-visited sanctuary, and even though this was different, as altered as she was, she still preferred the relative familiarity and solace of his thoughts to the rest, so she burrowed deeper into his embrace, clutching at his sweater in an effort to use tactile sensation to anchor herself, still too afraid to open her eyes, aware that she was crying only when he/she felt the moisture of her tears on his/her neck.
"Make it stop," she sobbed into his/her ear, felt him/her shudder with empathizing pain at the pitiable request. "I'm blind, Simon! There's nothing there! She's gone, washed away in the flood, and now she's just a mirror, shattered on the floor."
"Shh, River, shh. You're not blind—it's all right. Here, you know me, remember? Look at me. Look up. Look up, and tell me if you can see me."
She didn't want to, didn't want to leave the minuscule comfort provided by the deprivation of sight, but it was her ge-ge asking it of her, so slowly, tentatively, certain she would find herself once more, still, in the heart of a kaleidoscope, she pried open her eyes.
And she saw him.
Simon—worried blue eyes, concerned features, mouth upturned in a bittersweet smile, worry creased into his brow, youth obscured by responsibility, affection unmarred. His hands framed her shoulders, his body blocked her from the sight of the others, all of them watching and looking at her, their thoughts threatening to steal self-awareness from her, but Simon was there, an anchor keeping her grounded to her body.
"I can see you," she whispered, and so great was her relief that she wept again and hugged him tightly, her face turned into his neck so that she didn't risk visual contact with the others' overpowering consciousnesses. "I can see you," she said again, the fact so great a miracle that it bore repeating. "Just…" She took a deep breath, swallowing tears and letting their salty liquid wipe away the smudges off the pile of shards on which she could now begin to loosen her painful grip. "Just don't ever stop seeing me, Simon."
"Never," he promised her fiercely, and so welcoming and warm was that comfort that she found the stormy drug within her submerged beneath the quilt of Simon's unwavering devotion. Gradually, instantaneously, the others disappeared, blinked out of her mind so that all she saw was Simon looking at her, and her own hands on his collar. Her resultant smile made Simon's expression lighten slightly, which was enough to make her own smile stick around just a bit longer despite the headache induced by the baptism of thoughts.
"You didn't eat anything," Simon worried aloud, heedless of his own full plate behind him, untouched and untasted. "Do you want us to go back to your room and eat? Or do you want to stay here?"
The possibility of being consumed inside the minds of Serenity's inhabitants was frightening, almost as much so as her nightmares, and yet…and yet Kaylee was sitting just beside Simon, watching and waiting, and Simon was aware of the mechanic's gaze, a tiny little piece of himself he had carefully, solemnly packed away, pretending he didn't yearn for the companionship of others, of one other in particular. He was embarrassed now, she could feel, as always worried about what her outbursts might mean to their welcome on this boat, a bit afraid to meet the others' eyes, and yet…he wanted to stay. Kaylee had been smiling at him, at something he'd said before...before River.
"She will eat here," River—she thought she was still River—said imperiously, and for her trouble was awarded a flicker of relief and happiness in Simon and glee in Kaylee and varying other responses from the others that she dared not linger on.
"Okay. I'll get you some more food." Simon straightened her chair and slid his plate over to her, and picked up her plate from the deck, cleaning up her mess, getting himself a bit more food. River kept her eyes fixed on his plate. Maybe she was a bit embarrassed too about her outburst, or maybe not. She hadn't been herself long enough to know, wasn't yet familiar enough with her body and consciousness to figure out for sure what she was thinking and feeling.
When Simon finally sat back down again, Mal said something wry and acerbic, and Zoë agreed to his rhetorical question, and Jayne made a crack about Simon, and Kaylee leapt to his defense, and Wash insulted the mercenary, and Inara smoothed the moment before it turned into an argument, and Simon smiled shyly, quietly, and Book complimented him on something or other, and River watched her plate and tried very hard to assimilate all that she had experienced in the same way her body digested the food Simon made sure she ate.
It was hard, though, especially considering that it had been only…recently—months? or only weeks?—not too long ago that she hadn't known which silent voice went with which face, which presence, which spoken voice. Now, there was a whole new 'verse of concepts and notions and overwhelming emotions to pick through.
Daringly, cautiously, she looked up from the unappetizing food before her, her gaze on Jayne, drawn by the potency of his nervousness. She didn't need the shifting looks, the seat chosen for its distance from Simon's admiring gaze, the lack of insults thrown either Simon or River's way. Those physical signs were too nebulous, too vague, and redundant next to the restrained fear leaking from his every pore, the anxiety that they'll find out, they'll know, they'll see what I did.
In fact, each one sitting at this table broadcast one thought or impression above all others. A swirling, shifting mass of emotion, half-conceived thought that was more felt than understood, a flood that waited to rapaciously devour River should she venture out from behind her brother's protective umbrella of River, River, River, Kay—no, River, River, River…
The mind cried out for a frame of reference, for common ground, and River—maybe his-River, maybe broken-River, maybe some more present, twisted form of them both—was eager to grant that wish, desperate to quantify all that possessed her.
Jayne, so like all the border towns on the Rim planets they visited, the ones that offered nothing of what River was used to yet had an allure, an appeal all their own. There were raucous taverns and tawdry brothels and a plethora of armaments bristling with firepower…and yet, hidden deep inside under stacks of letters and monies sent to his mother and warm knitted hats, there were homes where families lived and quiet stores that gave out necessities and a few soup kitchens, here and there, that handed out sparse moments of compassion, of goodness, most of it spiraling outward from a well-tended grave with a boy's face, shining with idealism and hero-worship, stamped into the headstone made out of mudder's clay.
And Kaylee, sitting there beside River at Simon's right hand, the recipient of whatever portion of his attention he allowed to wander from River. She was bright and glowing and radiant, sweet and full of life and vitality, a sun that shone outward to seep through into even the hardest or most distracted of hearts, pulling others into her orbit even though so many wouldn't realize or admit that it was the sun keeping them there, spinning ever onward, a sun whose heart wasn't pure magnum but rather the gentle beating heart of Serenity herself, a sun begetting a sun, both of them caressing and nurturing the lives so dependent on them.
And Wash, sitting there with laughter pocketed in his mouth and Zoë's hand treasured in his, the stalwart first officer's own smile quiet and reserved but no less sincere for all that—the mountains rising starkly into the sky, growing up from the ground to stand alone, unyielding, unmoving, dipping down into hidden valleys full of verdant growth known only to a select treasured few, blossoming and blooming in secret places, softened and smoothed by the ocean waves washing up against her, laughing through the surf, drawing back with the fears of low tide, bubbling and chuckling and so much deeper than he looked from the outside, daring to reach out liquid fingers toward those quiet, private nooks amidst the towering mountains.
Inara, sitting there at the foot of the table, opposite the captain either by design or chance, her very appearance denoting the desert, so austere, so beautiful, so dangerous, burning and searing away all who sought to enter without permission, offering a dangerous route of misdirection and shifting sands, hiding away the precious oases that so miraculously existed, demanding time and effort and risk as the price of those stolen waters.
And Book with his hidden hair and his broken symbol and his tempting faith, fleeing to the Black he so resembled, trying so hard to grow his faith as vast as space itself, never realizing that his faith was more like the shining stars pricking through the surface of the obsidian past that threatened to close over him, secretive and dangerous, underlying the glowing suns like cold velvet, dimmed and muted and justified by the too-sharp stars that hung there in the void, each one a landmark set out along the course of his life.
And Mal, the captain, the sergeant, the reluctant hero, personified by the ship Serenity herself, a battle he'd never admit was over, a piece of history that had been forgotten by too many, a war he'd never let go of, that he'd carry everywhere with him, inside him, living it out so that everyone who'd forgotten what had happened would see it in all its disillusioned, defiant, disparate glory when they looked at him, collecting others in his metal shell and soft interior to replace the ones who had come before and fallen all around him in a haze of bullets and laser fire.
And Simon, dear, sweet Simon, a rock on which all the forces of the 'verse could hurl themselves without effect, yet warmed by the sun and possessing a myriad of caverns and nooks to shelter and protect his beloved sister. So solid and sturdy and unwavering, planted deep in whatever he devoted himself to, be it doctoring or River or even Kaylee one day, heedless of the winds of fate and chance and malevolency that battered and howled at his unbending steadfastness.
But that left one person at the table still who had yet to be quantified, one last individual who wasn't so individual now, unique traits and personable thoughts twisted and perverted to suit command words and mental conditioning and all the terrifying bodies that lived within her—three more besides the decaying corpses she'd seen before, three men wearing uniforms of black and silhouetted against a silver Skyplex—and the shards of nightmares that sliced and gashed and ripped yet still managed to connect all the stumbling pieces of herself into a broken whole.
River herself.
Everyone at the table broadcast one thought above all. But if that were so…what would hers be? The ones who came two by two—or maybe they had come after, or before, it was so hard to keep it all straight—had unmade and then remade her so that she could look around and know all that she saw in the others, see deep into their minds as if their flesh and bone had been peeled back to allow her entrance, but in doing so, they had made it impossible for her to hear her own thoughts, to see what she herself thought or felt or considered.
She was just like all the moons in this discovered system, beautiful and useful all on their own, then terraformed, changed, distorted to fit their own means and ends, and now still beautiful, still useful, yet possessing dangers hidden, some in deep mines, others in poisoned plains, or tainted waters, or noxious skies. Hidden deep beneath the transmogrified surface, lurking in wait for an opportunity, a target…courage, resourcefulness, coherence.
Together, they all—Mal, Inara, Zoë, Wash, Kaylee, Jayne, Book, and Simon and River—made up the building blocks that comprised the 'verse, missing only Earth-that-was, yet still, really, containing remnants of that place, of those peoples, of their secrets and bloodlines and frailties. All here, at one table, the 'verse condensed into a single room.
River couldn't help but laugh at that thought, and once she laughed at that thought, it was hard not to laugh at another and then another until suddenly it seemed impossible to stop laughing. She couldn't understand why Simon didn't join in, why he looked at her so concernedly, so tenderly, instead of laughing with her. But then, Simon had always been too serious for his own good, never able to stop and pull his nose out of his books or his patients and remember to smile unless she was there to show him the way.
She tried to show him this time, really she did, but he wasn't listening to her. He so rarely listened anymore, she thought, though there were so many holes and gaps in her mind that it was hard to say for certain. He led her away from the 'verse and took her to a tiny room where there was only moon and stone, and she laughed again because it was so funny that the immovable stone should have such a soft touch and soothing voice.
"I'm sorry, River," the stone kept murmuring. "I'm so sorry. I never should have switched the medication. I just hated seeing you get sick—I thought this one would make the nausea go away, but…I'm sorry. I'll keep trying. Please, just…please be patient with me. I'm trying. I'm trying."
"Storms come and go," she said in a sing-song voice, dancing her fingers over his brow and nose and chin with a little giggle. "Just don't bring the lightning."
"Whatever you want," he replied, and that was the funniest joke she'd ever heard so she laughed and laughed and laughed until she finally realized, as she burrowed into his comforting chest, that she was actually weeping with harsh, choking sobs that made her entire body shudder and drained the moons of all their rivers.
Simon never gave her that particular transfusion of silver fire again, and during those times when she remembered it, she was pathetically grateful for that. Some punch lines should never be understood; some jokes were too painful to be explained or understood.
And then sometimes, other times, it was her emotions that were given clarity, made crystal-clear and diamond-sharp. The first time it happened, it puzzled her. It had been so long since she had been able to pick out one emotion from the mass of them that dominated her. Yet the sea of everything had been siphoned off and turned into a stream that glistened transparently enough to reveal her feet, planted in the silt on the bottom, still and quiet and poignant.
Without the tempest of every emotion she'd ever felt or could possibly feel buffeting her on all sides, she was able to stare into that stream and look long and hard at each emotion, each feeling, each impression. She ran her fingers through the water, startled to find there were liquid layers, the sun-warmed top giving way to cooler waters below and then to the iciness of the bottom layer.
So much she could feel and think and emote, and yet…and yet there was so little actually there. Large emotions like boulders but all the smaller pebbles had been ground into fine sand that drifted like fairy dust between her toes.
Irritation, though, that one was there, reflecting back an image of Simon's eyes lit with admiration and gratitude when they'd escaped from the hands of blue—and terror, lingering still like spiders flitting across the surface of the stream, brilliant blue, leaking cloying dye to obscure the clear waters. Irritation, remembered terror, her own gratitude toward Serenity and her crew for taking her in and looking after her—some kindly, others absentmindedly, others still a bit reluctantly, but all looking after her in their own ways—and love that had been there her entire life for the brother she thought she could probably remember seeing shortly after her birth if she just tried hard enough, or maybe even his voice, muddled through the womb, as he spoke to her even before she'd entered the 'verse headfirst.
They were so few emotions when it was all boiled down, so she examined each one as if it were a precious commodity. The gratitude was easy to explain, but warm and comforting and silken. The terror was all-encompassing, all-pervasive, and always present, more familiar to her than her own name. The love was vast and endless and home and she dared not examine it for long lest her attention draw the spiders to it. And then only the irritation was left for her to decipher.
"Afraid. Afraid we'll find out," she said, and was pleased when the shelf in Simon's mind filled with admiration and gratitude for Jayne was instantly cleared of its offending clutter and cleaned meticulously. Pleased…until she looked around at all the shelves with her name on them and wondered what it would be like to see all those shelves cleared and cleaned just as quickly and immaculately.
She shivered, then, and fled Simon's thoughts, fled his mind altogether, hiding away until she felt Jayne's jagged-edged thoughts in the infirmary. Curious, then—a new emotion to examine and analyze—she ventured to the door and peeked inside.
Jayne, gleaming under sterile lights, braced and helpless, weak and afraid, though he'd never admit it.
"You're in a dangerous line of work, Jayne," Simon said, his tone such that a few memories floated to the surface of the transparent, reflective stream, images of Simon scarcely looking up from his packing for MedAcad while he calmly, almost off-handedly, as if he weren't sure why it even needed to be verbally reiterated, reassured her that of course he wouldn't forget her while he was gone, that she would always be his mei-mei.
She treasured the memory for a moment, allowing it to scare away the spiders and color the scene before her with faith and trust and pride—all new emotions that added depth and complexity to the pristine stream. Simon's tone kept her safe from fear and terror; his assurance that Jayne would always be safe with him kept the stream full and flowing, protected from drought; his offer of a truce reminded her of infractions he'd easily forgiven her, arguments he'd abandoned, bad days he'd weathered; his trust, so freely granted, made the water she waded through suddenly warm and soften and caress her with gentle currents that tugged her toward sunlight and lush grass.
River stood there, outside the infirmary, felt Simon's hand brush her shoulder comfortingly as he passed her, watched Jayne as his sluggish mind tried to comprehend what had just been given him, the gift he'd been granted.
Simon was so good and noble and selfless…and naïve.
Jayne was the rugged towns, and the townspeople didn't know what to do with stone, could only blast it away, or cover it up with more taverns and armories, or ignore it in favor of greener fields in other places. He didn't understand that stone could bolster and strengthen and support, instead saw it only as a deterrence, an obstacle, a wall. For the transient moment, Jayne would stand there at this section of stone cliff he hadn't seen before and scratch his head and ponder, but soon, when he'd had time to forget just how unyielding the stone was, he'd pull out his explosives and his building bricks and his blinders.
But the moon…well, no town could stand against the force of a tide or the darkness of an eclipse or the ground shaking beneath its very bedrocks.
So River smiled and she tilted her head and she said, "Also…I can kill you with my brain."
And she skipped away and followed the tug of her brother's thoughts and found him sitting on the edge of his bed, staring straight ahead.
"Simon?" she whispered, peering hesitantly into his room. At night, when the spiders entered her mind and sprayed their blue-tinged venom through her dreams, he would always come to her room, kneel at her bedside, whisper into her ear. She had rarely set foot into the room that was his, but she was unsurprised by its compulsive neatness, its crisply folded tidiness, its warm hominess with an extra brightly colored blanket folded at the foot of the bed and a tiny floating picture of Simon and River, young and innocent and together, atop the box doubling as a nightstand. Anything else to personalize it, to betray his innermost character, was in the infirmary he loved so much—the only piece left of all his persistent work to become a doctor—and her own room.
"River." Simon gave her a small, habitual smile and made a tiny nod to gesture her forward.
Slowly, almost shyly, she stepped over the threshold and into his room, took an extra step forward to stand just in front of him.
He looked up at her, something almost like exhaustion, or maybe disillusionment, in his expression, hidden behind his characteristic concern for her. "Is everything okay, River? Did you need something?"
"It hurt," she realized, surprised. It had never occurred to her that Simon had appreciated having a shelf in which he could finally contain Jayne, a place for him to hinge his hopes that maybe this was the safe place he had promised to find for her. She had not thought that removing that shelf would leave a small blank space that would mock Simon.
"What hurt? You're hurt?" A crease marred Simon's brow and he studied her intently, though he did not reach for her. His hands were cupped around something in his lap, concealing whatever it was from her view.
"She feels," River told him impatiently. "Transfusion woke up the stream, banished the ocean. Now all that's left is a see-through mirror. No injuries, just conflicting currents."
Simon blinked. "Okay. You're not feeling sick, are you? The medication—"
"It's not relevant." River waved a dismissive hand and then inched forward in an effort to see through the shield made by his hand, the curiosity so recently summoned making a quick reappearance.
Simon wasn't aware of her scrutiny, too absorbed in the empty shelf to notice the direction of her often-distracted gaze. The shelf, River belatedly saw, wasn't so empty anymore. In the place of his admiration for Jayne, there was now, seemingly, a shrine.
A box of all the people Simon had trusted who had ended up abandoning or betraying him. An image of a familiar young doctor, dark lock falling over his brow, face lit with innocence and hope. A nameplate for St. Lucy's Hospital on Ariel. A bag holding the metaphorical thirty pieces of silver.
In his hands, River caught a glimpse of worn cloth, faded colors, tiny creases where it had been folded into the shape of a handkerchief.
Troubled, she sank onto the bed beside Simon. After a moment of consideration, she tucked her hands around his arm and leaned into him. Some of the rigidity of his posture seemed to melt a bit, and he rested his head atop hers.
"I don't know who I am anymore, River," he whispered, almost more to himself than to her. "Sometimes I'm afraid of who I'm becoming."
"The stone is scoured clean," she murmured. "But it's still stone."
"You're right." A hint of a chuckle slipped from Simon's lips to stir her hair, and River was heartened by the light moving from his shrine—a shrine to his earlier self, to innocence and naiveté and ingenuousness—and to other rows, other thoughts, other memories. "Thanks for clearing that up, mei-mei."
"You're carrying the memento," she said, the incongruity of the statement noticeable to her but deemed immaterial. The cloth in his hand was distracting her, threatening to send her tumbling away from the clear stream and back into the turbulent ocean.
Simon glanced down at the remnant of her favorite blanket. "I needed something to remind me what mattered most." With a quick movement, he tucked it back into his shirt pocket, beneath his sweater, then curled his arm around her, creating an oft-visited nook for her to rest in. "But I don't need a reminder anymore. Not when I have the real thing."
And then there were no more thoughts of the Simon-that-had-been, no more shelves featuring him, only rows and rows and rows centered around River. It was a comforting anchor that kept her safe and grounded as she was tugged toward the high tide of the roiling ocean that swept away the quiet stream. It was a terrible responsibility that made her realize—with one of those bursts of clarity that floated through her like silver-infused bubbles and popped unexpectedly into her consciousness—that she herself was Simon's anchor, keeping him grounded to Serenity, to this life, to this 'verse.
But she was so fragile, hanging by a slender thread, so wounded and weak…what would happen when she finally lost the last shard-of-her and evaporated into nothingness? What would be left of Simon, for Simon, then?
Sometimes, most of the time, River found clarity to be just a bit overrated.
-Firefly-