She looked out the window at the stars scattered through the black. They reminded her of the snow falling outside her bedroom window when she was a little girl. Silent and beautiful, always there but not really a part of anything. Just like her.
Jayne wandered into the bridge, hoping for some alone time with the Cortex. He turned the pilot's chair to drop into it, and was surprised to find River sitting there, all curled up as small as could be.
"Ai ya! Whaddya doing hidin' in here?" He sat down in the co-pilot's station and looked at River. She had silent tears coursing down her cheeks and she was staring past him to the stars outside. He started to get uncomfortable and stood again. "I guess you ah, what ta be alone. I'll just..."
"She is solitary. She is no more part of the crew than those departed. She is wrapped in isolation, no one can intrude, no one wants to know. They are frightened. They are grieving. They have no room in their hearts for her now that she is no longer a girl but a weapon." The words fell from River in a monotone torrent, never adding expression to her face. Jayne ran his hand through his short unkempt hair and tried to say something comforting.
"She doesn't want comforting. She wants her life back. All the voices that fill her head, it's hard to find the one that's hers. All the feelings flood her body, but she is only a reflection of those around her. Is she here? Or just a mirror, a figment, a phantasm? Why don't they *see* her?" She turned and looked at Jayne with her big watery eyes, hair falling as a shield between them. "Jayne saw her. He made her have feelings that were hers alone, thoughts that belonged to no one else before her. Why has he avoided her? He thinks on her often. He remembers..."
Jayne sat down again suddenly, as if the air had been knocked out of him. "River-girl, I'm sorry, I shouldn'ta done that to ya. Back in that bar ... it were wrong, all sortsa wrong, an' it can't ever be right." He remembered the way she felt, the sounds that she made, the amazing smell of her that filled his dreams.
River got up slowly and walked over to him like she was approaching a wild horse that she didn't want to spook. "Wrong and right are immaterial. Concepts that were in the bits removed from her. Ideas that belong in a different world. In this world many things are more important. Exhilaration. Gratification. Companionship. She felt these for a shining moment, but they are gone now. Gone away because he won't even look at her now." She stopped inches away from him, unsure of how to reach for him without causing his retreat.
He sat stock still for a moment, then something in him broke. He reached for her and pulled her through the last of the distance between them. "I'm lookin' at ya now 'n I don't want ta stop." He wrapped his arms around her and bundled her into his lap, surrounding her with his warmth. She melted into him and sighed, reaching up to put her arms around his neck. They sat together, motionless, staring into the stars together.
"She isn't alone now."
"No, she won't be ever again."
He kissed the top of her head, and held her even closer.
Neither of them noticed when Inara entered the bridge and left quietly. She closed the door behind her as silently as she could, a small smile lighting her face. As she walked away, she ran into Mal heading for the bridge and distracted him from his destination. She knew that River and Jayne needed time to figure out what was happening before having to justify it to anyone else.