Discovering Home

Simon and River accidentally end up on the hunter ship Impala, where River discovers new talents, new purpose, and maybe someone she just might like. Simon only finds a brand new set of worries when he realizes River has grown up in an entirely different way than he ever could have guessed.

Notes:

Spoilers for S2 Supernatural storyline, some characters introduced in S4 and S5. Set post Serenity-movie for Firefly.
Written for sncross_bigbang. In the same universe as Neighborly (though you totally don't need to read that fic first). Inspired by a comment_fic prompt: Simon and River accidentally get on the wrong ship, prompted by darkmagic_luvr. Thanks to filenotch for invaluable plot advice and game_byrd for betaing and helping plug plot holes! Additional thanks to brighteyed_jill for listening to me winge and giving me hovertext code!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

“We’re in slip fifteen, don’t forget,” River said, tossing a grin over her shoulder at Simon. He hesitated on the threshold between Serenity and Taggamort station, and Kaylee gave him a little shove.

“Go on, have fun,” she admonished.

“You should come,” he said, tugging gently on her hand.

“Captain wants the cargo in, fast,” Kaylee said apologetically. Jayne grunted extravagantly behind her as he wheeled a red-stamped crate up the ramp, clearly pointing out that he was doing work, damn it, and anyone else who was standing around should be doing some too and not mooning over each other. “Besides, I have to get those new couplings in or we’re going to have a mighty short trip out of here. Go get your stuff.”

Simon smiled at her, kissed her quickly, and headed down the busy corridor after his sister.

“Kaylee is planning a welcome-home party. Be certain to bring her a gift,” River said when he caught up with her. Simon blushed just a little, and coughed.

“Right. And where are we going?” he asked.

“To see the photosynthesis effect in plants warmed by two-point-six billion wavelengths of light,” she said instantly. “They have one of the best atriums off-planet in this system.”

Simon smiled in spite of himself. Mal had been taking a lot of ship-to-ship and ship-to-station jobs lately, and Simon was seriously starting to long for seeing something growing that wasn’t mold on food. That amused him whenever he stopped to think about it; he hadn’t even thought about something as simple as good scenery in a while. It was amazing what you could stop to consider when the fierce edge of fear of discovery had faded. Ever since Miranda, Alliance heat had been turned down slightly on the Tams. None of the higher-ups wanted a repeat of the Mr. Universe broadcast.

Ahead, the market announced itself with colorful banners and an increase in chatter. Taggamort Station was on the border between Core space and Outer Rim space, which made it a good place for smugglers and thieves (and the occasional semi-honest businessman) to sell their goods. Simon’s eyes lit up at the tables of medical supplies, locked and guarded, and subtly felt for the coins in his belt pouch. Yes, he had enough to resupply, finally. Serenity had been doing decently, for a change.

River nodded at him absently and continued to stroll in the direction of the atrium. It was only a stone’s throw away from the market, lit up with three nearer stars and billions of farther ones, and Simon only felt a faint hint of his usual unease as River vanished into the crowd. She’d gotten a lot more independent, confident, and stable in the last year, and little of it had to do with the drugs he’d given her. Confronting her demons had done more to heal her than Simon could have hoped for.

Shunting aside his near-reflexive worry on her behalf, Simon walked up to the merchant’s stall to begin a thorough bargaining session.

Undoubtedly Zoe would have gotten him better prices a lot faster, but Simon’s genuine medical knowledge had finally impressed the seller enough to get him what he needed. Turning away from the bustling crowds, he entered the atrium, listening closely for River. He knew he didn’t dare go back to the ship without something for Kaylee, and heaven help him, he needed River’s assistance to find the right thing. It was astoundingly quiet amidst the lush trees, bushes, and flowers, and the scent in here was rich and sweet. It reminded him of Inara’s perfume, and he wondered if Kaylee would like something like that.

“Unlikely. It would clash with engine grease,” River said from right behind him. Simon didn’t even start.

“Do you have any better ideas?” he asked, hefting his now-heavy medical bag into a more comfortable position.

“Run,” she said quietly, eyes fixed behind him.

Simon blinked. “What?” He peered over his shoulder and his heart almost stopped. The man strolling the paths behind them wasn’t wearing the full Alliance uniform, but the patch on his arm and gun in his holster proclaimed his allegiance. The man looked right at them, squinted fixedly, and then his eyes flew open wide in recognition.

“Halt!” he barked, and Simon took River’s excellent advice. They ducked down the paths of the atrium, shredding foliage in their wake, and burst back into the market. They could hear the Alliance officer shouting behind them, muffled by the distance and the crowd, and kept elbowing their way through.

The docking ring was the next corridor down, nearly within sight, when alarms starting wailing, lights flashing, a synthesized voice telling everyone that the station was about to go on lockdown. If that happened, more Alliance military would show up, and there was little anyone could do to stop it. Simon and River ran into the docking ring in time to see pressure doors start to close all along the corridor. The docked captains were sealing up and blasting off, not daring to risk their business with more Alliance on the way.

Seven, eight… Simon was mentally counting the slips, hunting for a familiar face, while trying to keep up with River’s lighter, unburdened step. Ten. Another door slammed down next to them, sealing off another ship. Twelve.

“HALT!” A magnified voice boomed through the corridor, and Simon could hear the tramp of feet quick-marching in unison. They were close, too close!

“Fourteen!” he gasped out loud, and his eyes strained ahead to look for Serenity. Something ricocheted off a beam next to them, and Simon ducked, his heart pounding. He twisted to look behind him, feet still flying, and saw a small squad of security officers only a half-dozen slips away. Terrified, he faced forward, and saw the familiar red-stamped crates Jayne had been loading this afternoon. He grabbed River’s hand and nearly flung her into the slip, both of them tripping and landing on the deck in their haste. The pressure door slammed shut nearly at their heels.

“Get a move on before they try to override the dock controls!” someone yelled, their voice distorted on the aged comm system. He’d assumed it was Mal, and closed his eyes for a moment in relief as Zoe overrode the docking couplings and engaged the engines.

Simon’s eyes flew open again. The deep rumble that vibrated the ship was nothing like Serenity’s quieter susurration. He sat up, looking around more closely, realizing the spacious cargo bay, while somewhat beat-up, was not a Firefly. He didn’t know what kind of ship it was (Kaylee might know, but the roar of the engines as the drives were revved up to full meant Kaylee was nowhere near to ask), other than aged and spacious. River just looked around curiously, taking in the surroundings with a calm Simon wished he felt.

“We’ve fallen in with rough folk, Simon,” she said serenely.

Simon opened his mouth to ask for clarification when he heard the uncomfortably familiar sound of someone priming a shotgun. He turned to see a pale, red-haired woman leveling the weapon at him, her attractiveness mitigated by her somber demeanor. More cocking guns drew his attention to a freakishly tall man who looked like he could have bested Mal in a fair fight, and Jayne in an unfair one.

This is just not fair at all, Simon thought faintly.

“Hello Sam,” River said, and turned to look up at the red-haired woman. “Anna.”

“Sam, what the hell is going on down there?” a gruff voice demanded over the comm. Now that Simon wasn’t hearing it through a haze of adrenaline, it clearly wasn’t Mal’s voice.

“Looks like two of Mal’s crew ran on here by accident when the alarms sounded,” Sam called as he slapped open the comm.

“Who we got?”

“The Tams.”

There was a beat of silence, and then a curse. “Anna, you mind taking these two to Bobby? I’m gonna call Mal before he accuses me of crew-napping.”

Sam holstered his weapon, but it took Dean coming back on to say, “Anna, stand down,” to get her to shoulder her piece.

The tall man reached down to haul Simon up from the floor.

“Welcome to The Impala.”

-----

"He's taking this badly," Dean said over his shoulder.

Sam could see the view screen, and the view wasn’t pretty. To say Mal took the news badly was a bit of an understatement. Sam knew Dean had Bobby take the Tams to their infirmary to keep them occupied while he contacted Serenity, because he didn’t need an audience for this. It wasn't unusual that Dean and Mal got into a shouting match, but Sam thought this one was more colorful than most. Mal was downright tetchy about the Tams, and Dean had been right to keep them out of the conversation.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Mal demanded, looking furious even over the bad connection.

“Oh, you know, just the usual; get my crew out of any Fed entanglements. I thought you, of all the ships I know, might appreciate that!” Dean snapped right back.

“How am I supposed to get my medic back?”

“What, you want us to keep little sister?”

“Hey now, that’s our albatross you’re talking about,” Mal said, sounding irritated.

“Be that as it may, we both rabbited from Taggamort. Feds will be watching for both of us,” Dean pointed out.

“So we head for one of the border moons, do a hand-off there.”

“I don’t know about you, Mal, but we blasted off with only half our fuel and cargo. And we have got a job on Deadwood and another on Chiron. If we get enough off those two, we can meet you on Whitefall in two weeks.”

“Two weeks?!” Mal all but sputtered.

“I got a crew, and two more mouths, to feed.” Oh, if looks could kill, Dean would be dead, dead, dead. He hadn’t known Mal would get so bent out of shape over this.

“They better be in one piece. I know how you run your ship,” Mal warned.

“Scout’s honor,” Dean said shortly, with a sharp gesture off-screen. Castiel discommed before Mal could launch another volley. Sam knew it pissed Dean off that Mal was right to threaten him. Despite the fact that the whole crew of the Impala could and did take up arms, Serenity was far more likely to be able to get past Alliance patrols. With their registered Companion and wealth of crew onboard with no outstanding criminal records, they could appear innocuous if they wanted to. But the Impala’s mercenary reputation earned it a much harder look from anyone official. No one on his ship appeared innocent. If the Fed found both ships, they’d board Mal’s but shoot Dean’s out of the sky. And that just wouldn’t make his day.

“Cas, let’s get to Deadwood, quietly,” Dean said. Castiel nodded solemnly and set a new course.

-----

Simon was appalled at the state of the Impala’s infirmary. He’d seen more modern amenities in the back alley chop-shops that had made Cortex news on a slow day. When Bobby had shown Simon into his “second office,” being the resident sawbones, Simon had tried to keep a neutral expression. Mal had kept a better infirmary due to his military background. It looked like the Winchesters’ crew spent their passion, and money, elsewhere on the ship.

“Mal speaks highly of you. Mind putting’ yer talents to work while you’re here?”

Simon nodded his head in assent, grateful he’d taken his bag with him to restock before he’d hopped into the wrong cargo bay. He didn’t want to think about touching the motley collection of primitive-looking knives and unlabeled bottles of pills and powders.

“Don’t worry, I got a few more things than whiskey and chewing gum,” Bobby said with a faint smile. He unlocked a half-hidden cabinet with a much better selection of tools and medicine. “Gotta keep ‘em locked up with all the apes around here. Too many hunters think they can sew their own guts back in.”

Simon was startled into a laugh at the last comment. “Hunters? I thought you were mercenaries.”

“The appellation is convenient, but their true title is more descriptive.” River stood on tiptoe to look over Simon’s shoulder, not at the supplies, but at Bobby.

Simon turned back to Bobby, getting concerned all over again. “What are you hunting that needs five of you?” Five of them, all heavily armed, with an armory Simon had passed by that was as big as Serenity’s galley. Jayne would have been green with envy.

“A lot of nasty things most folks don’t want to believe exist,” Bobby said after a moment’s thought and a hard look at both of them.

Simon went pale. “Reavers?”

Bobby shook his head violently. “We’re not that stupid. Reavers don’t have rules.”

“And what you hunt does?” Simon asked.

“Salt and iron, sulfur and blood, silver and spell,” River chanted softly. She looked over at Bobby sharply. “Anna told me.”

“Anna did no such thing,” Bobby said positively.

“She carried them in her coat. One of her ribs is broken, Simon, will you fix it?”

“Of course,” he said automatically.

Bobby snorted. “Better you than me.”

Bobby left, and River ducked out briefly, and returned all but towing the reluctant Anna. Though physically she didn’t seem that imposing, Simon had lived on the same ship with Zoe for two years. He knew better than to underestimate anyone Zoe was impressed by. And Anna had really impressed her once.

“My brother will make you well,” River said earnestly to Anna. “He’s very clever. And properly terrified of making a mistake.”

It was a sign of both Simon’s filial love and physician’s patience that he didn’t even sigh.

He carefully manipulated Anna’s rib back into place and wrapped her ribcage tightly to keep them aligned. She hadn’t even winced at what had to be at least a sore procedure, and left him with barely more than a nod of acknowledgement. Simon just sighed quietly and began cleaning up.

Bobby came in a moment later, looking slightly shocked. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.” He shook his head. “Anna’s fought me tooth and nail before letting me treat her.”

“Simon’s learned on the most reluctant patients the ‘verse has to offer. He’s the best. Top three percent of his class,” River said. Simon had to agree with her. Despite his promises to Jayne after Ariel, Jayne had to be drug into the infirmary, bleeding and semi-conscious, before he’d go to Simon on his own. Not to mention River herself wasn’t exactly lining up to take her medicine all the time, even if she needed less of it nowadays.

“Well, hell, son, we could use you here,” Bobby said. “I patch them up as best I can, but I never had proper schooling. Learned most of what I do from a couple of animal docs and a few war buddies.”

“Your crew,” Simon said slowly. “Do they need patching up often?”

“Like yer sister said, we’re hunters. Most of what we hunt is smart, strong, most often with teeth and claws.”

Simon desperately wanted to ask exactly what they’d gotten themselves into on this ship, but stopped himself. He worried that if he knew too much, Dean might make him stay. Every captain had secrets, and everything he knew pointed to the fact that the Winchesters had quite a lot.

“Anna and Castiel are a hell of a lot tougher than they look. Anna took that rib shot from a vampire that tried to rip her heart out,” Bobby volunteered, just itching for Simon to ask questions, prodding at him.

Simon wasn’t going to rise to the bait. The last time Serenity’s crew had dealt in any way with the Impala, River had had screaming nightmares for three days straight.

“They destroy creatures of darkness, Simon. We can trust them,” River said.

“What do you call Reavers, then?” Simon asked.

“Chaos,” River said flatly.

“What she said. You think about what I said. We got a contract to clear out a wendigo tribe on Deadwood in two days, so if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check the flamethrowers.”

Bobby left, both Simon and River looking after him.

“We can trust them?” Simon asked.

“A very little,” River amended.

It seemed Simon’s successful treatment of Anna had gotten the attention of the redoubtable Captain Winchester. He’d never met the man face-to-face; the last time the Impala and Serenity had been at the same dock, Simon had been asked to stay on board, not that he’d needed much encouragement. He’d remembered Jiangyin, and nearly being burned at the stake, all too well to go exploring.

Simon had barely gotten cleaned up when Dean Winchester loomed in the doorway. Simon looked up, craning his neck a bit. While Dean’s younger brother was ridiculously tall, topping Jayne by a head easily, Dean wasn’t much shorter. Simon finished putting the bandages away before turning his attention to the captain; he’d learned not to back down in front of Mal.

“So, Bobby tells me you have a way with women.”

Of all the things that Simon had been expecting to come out of Dean Winchester’s mouth, that hadn’t been among them.

“Ah, yes,” Simon said slowly, with all the dignity he could muster. Dean grinned and took a step inside the infirmary.

“Mal ain’t half mad that you ended up here, so you know.”

“We didn’t mean to impose-.”

“You just had Alliance goons on your tail,” Dean finished. Simon got a sinking feeling in his stomach. Mal already knew what he was getting into, sheltering the Tams, and while Dean didn’t have a squeaky-clean record, he didn’t deserve that same kind of heat involuntarily.

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be sorry yet,” Dean said. “You’re gonna be stuck here a while.”

Sam didn’t wince when the outraged, “What?!” echoed through the cargo hold and corridors. Dean had the tact of a boot to the head sometimes. He was trying to be a little kinder in breaker the news to the younger Tam.

“Simon’s frustration is understandable,” River said, before Sam could open his mouth. “He’s come to think of Serenity as home, a stabilizing influence on me. He fears I may backslide.”

“Backslide?”

“Mental stability. You know.”

Sam was both worried and a little embarrassed by River’s knowing stare. Somehow she knew something he hadn’t discussed with anyone but Dean. Granted Mal was closemouthed about his pet fugitives, and rightly so, but Sam had gotten the impression he thought River uncanny in a way that couldn’t be easily explained. Face-to-face with her, Sam was put in mind of Pamela, but without the seer’s earthy warmth. River was almost unworldly, but reachable. She didn’t have Anna or Castiel’s remote calm.

“What do you know?” Sam asked carefully.

“What you dream isn’t what you mean to, not what’s in your mind, but in others,” she said, and touched his temple for a moment. “My dreams aren’t often my own either.”

Sam put his hand over her fingers and slowly pulled her hand away, closing his hand gently around hers. She did know, and wasn’t afraid. Sam had caught Dean looking at him when he didn’t think Sam was watching, worry in his eyes, but not her. And she knew more than Sam had ever managed to articulate to Dean.

He kept his hand around hers when he answered, “Ever afraid to sleep?”

“Sometimes.” River squeezed his hand and pulled away. She looked over in the direction of the infirmary and picked up the thread of Sam’s original conversation. “We can’t meet up with Serenity for a while, to deflect suspicion. So Simon and I should make ourselves useful and keep out of the way,” River said brightly, taking Sam’s words out of his mouth.

“You already have,” Sam said.

River smiled guilelessly. “I mustn’t backslide, Sam. Nor should you.”

He nodded solemnly. “Deal,” he said, bowing his head briefly to seal the promise. Even if she were normal, trying to adjust to life on the Impala, albeit temporarily, could be hard. Actually, the fact that River wasn’t normal was a plus in this situation.

He nodded his head at the corridor beyond the cargo hold. No time to start like the present. “Tour?”

River reached out and took his elbow as if she were a debutant at a fancy ball. “Of course,” she said, as if they’d had a long-standing date.

Inexplicably blushing, Sam led River deeper into the ship.

“Two weeks?!” Simon said, finally managing to hold his temper.

“Shortest we can manage, and I’m not even sure I can hold that date. If one of our jobs goes on long, or Mal runs into trouble, could be longer.”

Simon took a deep breath and let his frustration run out as he let it go. An old technique, but valuable even for a Core-trained doctor. Doubly so in this life. Simon’s knew Mal’s schedule was more guesswork than anything else, subject to the vagaries of engine repair status, route choice around Alliance patrols, state of anyplace they docked, and cash flow for fuel. Other Outer Rim captains were the same. The trains, as it were, almost never ran on time out here.

“You ok with that?” Dean asked, when Simon’s silence stretched on.

“I’ll have to be, won’t I?” Simon said tightly, and winced internally at his bad manners. “Thanks for keeping us.” Dean had been more than courteous in letting him and River stay on board. He could have dropped them on the nearest station or planet, handed them over to the Alliance, or even just shoved them out the airlock. Having two more people on board drawing on their air and food, not to mention drawing down more Alliance attention, wasn’t a small thing.

“I’ll help your crew as long as we’re here,” Simon added. Making the offer to the captain made it official. And it was the only way of repayment he had.

“Good, that makes us even.” Dean hesitated before going on. “Bobby told you what we do?”

“A little,” Simon said, not bothering to keep the skepticism out of his voice.

Dean grinned. “Think we’re a bunch of crazies, don’t you? Been out on the Rim too long, thinking every outlaw and hungry wolf looks like some sort of monster?”

“You’re mercenaries,” Simon said. “I saw the size of your arsenal. If people pay you to get rid of their problems, fine-.”

“Doc, I know you ain’t been out here that long, but you’ve seen how many people out here go armed. Aside from a few peaceful religious types, I don’t think there’s many who wouldn’t be able to ward off a predator- human or animal. We go after what falls in between those definitions.”

Simon gestured in acquiescence, not wanting to fight, no matter how mad he found Dean’s beliefs. “You do what you have to. That’s what Mal does.”

“You believe in Reavers, but not wendigos?” Dean asked.

“Ok, one, I don’t even know what a ‘wendigo’ is, and two, Reavers are people driven into insanity through chemical exposure. They’re not some kind of Earth-That-Was legend,” Simon said.

“Doesn’t mean they can’t still kill you,” Dean said darkly.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” Simon was a lot wiser in the ways of the ‘verse than he had been since he left Osiris. Even Reavers left behind evidence; surely rumors of whatever Dean claimed to hunt would have crossed his ears at least once in three years.

“Pray you never have to,” Dean said, and sighed. “Look, we keep the ship pretty safe and do our hunting away from her. But if someone tells you to get down, run away, or lock the door? You do it. You don’t want to mess with the things we hunt.

“Right.” Simon nodded instantly. He certainly wouldn’t be risking putting himself into the line of fire… but he wasn’t sure he could vouch for River. She’d become a lot more independent since Miranda. Simon wondered, with a pang, if there was any chance he could get a wave to Kaylee before they got out of communication range. It was just then he realized it was a little too quiet. “Where’s River?”

Sam didn’t quite understand when his tour of the ship had turned into a date. He’d barely gotten through a brief run-down of a few storerooms and gestured vaguely in the direction of the engine room when they’d gotten to the galley. Food had been laid out for anyone who cared to eat, and River had plied them both with plates and cups, settling them down like a couple at a restaurant.

“I didn’t-,” Sam began, trying to figure out how he’d ended up here.

“I know you didn’t,” River said serenely, and took a bite of the crispy noodles and vegetables on her plate. The Impala worked a lot of agro worlds, and food-barter was good a payout as any.

“Then…?”

“I want to know what we’ve gotten ourselves into. You hunt dangerous things, things few others believe in. But you’re not weak, not been lied to about this. You have a good purpose.”

Sam didn’t quite know what to say to that.

“I fought and killed two dozen Reavers in hand-to-hand combat,” she added casually, and speared a square of squash on her chopsticks with precision.

Sam’s jaw dropped. “That was your ship? You sent out that recording?”

“We lost two of our crew,” River said, nodding.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said, mind going furiously. He was impressed – he would have thought the Alliance would have wiped out the people who’d upset the status quo so badly. With all the little fires that recording had stirred up, the Impala had been able to slip through the cracks a lot easier. But right on the heels of being impressed was a stab of fear. Nobody sane tangled with Reavers, nobody. Anyone that had fought them instead of running away had usually blown up the pursuing ship in any way they could. Anyone that could fight a Reaver hand-to-hand and come out on top was someone to be reckoned with. Someone that could fight and kill two dozen and not be scarred or maimed for life… that was a person you might want to avoid.

Except that you could almost say the same for any of the Impala’s crew.

“What exactly are you going to hunt on Deadwood? Bobby said wendigos.”

Sam pondered his usual reticence around hunting subjects. He also pondered that the young woman in front of him had killed Reavers and wasn’t maimed or dead. He didn’t even entertain the idea she was lying; you didn’t lie about Reavers.

And River had said her dreams weren’t her own. What he didn’t tell her, she might find out the hard way. After all she must have been through, if it was anything like what had happened to him, she didn’t need another hard lesson.

He started talking.

Simon found River in the galley, talking animatedly with Sam, both of them using their chopsticks for emphasis. Simon quietly sighed in relief; he’d been half-afraid things had gone very wrong. River didn’t often talk with those outside the ship. He quashed his overprotective physician’s instincts and got himself some food, sitting on the other side of the room to give them a little privacy. He kept stealing glances at the two, when he wasn’t in silent raptures of joy over the fresh food. And after a few minutes, an entirely different and rather rusty set of protective instincts came to the fore.

He could remember the last time River had smiled that way at a boy, just a year or so before the academy. Simon had been deep in his residency, but he’d made sure to pass a wary eye over Trey, just enough to make the kid nervous. It hadn’t gone any farther than that, but Simon had mentally put together the whole program. What he’d say before their first real date or dance, the speeches about not daring to break her heart; he’d been ready for that.

And honestly he’d thought he’d never have to use them after he’d gotten River out of the academy. Simon had privately doubted, somewhere in the place where he hid all his shameful thoughts, that she’d ever be whole enough to think about dating again. To discover that maybe, just possibly, he’d been wrong, made him both elated and terrified at the same time.

Simon reapplied himself to his food and kept his mouth shut. They’d just gotten on board, just met the crew, just barely started to fit in. It could be that those old instincts were off-base, or maybe that River wanted a little bit of privacy and conversation with someone who wasn’t excruciatingly aware of all of her past problems. If so, Simon couldn’t blame her a bit.

Dean was waiting when Sam finally put an appearance on the bridge. It was late enough for both of the Tams to be asleep, but Sam was slowly putting himself on Deadwood time. He needed to be on the right cycle if he was going to be sharp for the hunt.

“Chick didn’t freak out?” Dean asked, leaning against the pilot’s console with his arms crossed.

Castiel was patiently feeding a route into the computer while Anna stared out the window as if she were standing watch. It never seemed to matter to her that usually the long-range scanners could pick up anything well before she could see it, she always stood watch. Those two had been a recent addition to the ship – they claimed they were angels, late for an Apocalypse that had never happened. Their claims of the origin of their powers may or may not have been true, but the two were the toughest hunters the Winchesters had come across, with the ability to send demons screaming back to hell, though they just didn’t seem to understand emotion. Neither of them would repeat a word Sam and Dean said, and the brothers had learned to talk together as if they weren’t even there. No one minded, and there was only so much privacy to be had on a ship.

“No, River’s fine,” Sam said. As Dean got the beginnings of a leer on his face, Sam cut him off. “She took it well.”

“Better than her brother, then. Ok, you-. Wait, took it well?” Dean’s eyes narrowed. “Sam…”

“She’s a fighter, Dean. She wanted to know how to keep Simon safe if anything happens.”

“Dammit, Sam.” Dean looked away, jaw set.

Sam looked back towards the main corridor, seeing the galley in his mind’s eye. River hadn’t blinked, hadn’t looked skeptical, hadn’t even asked him to repeat himself when he talked about wendigos. She had taken in the lore without a qualm, and Sam might have been worried she was just humoring him, if she hadn’t asked specific, pointed questions about wendigo habits.

“You know what Bobby and Ellen think,” Sam reminded him. Dean scowled, but didn’t contradict. Anyone that had tangled with Reavers was usually willing to open their minds a little more. And the more open eyes there were looking for trouble, the better the chances of a real hunter getting the word before half a planet was overrun by werewolves or vampires or somesuch. Hence the fact that Bobby hadn’t beat around the bush with the Tams when it came to what they were hunting, even if Simon wasn’t willing to accept it.

“Well Ellen ain’t here to back you up,” Dean said pointedly. Both she and her daughter Jo had taken a side job putting down a stubborn spirit on Whitefall, and wouldn’t be back for weeks.

“Doesn’t make her any less right. And Bobby’s still on my side,” Sam said.

“Ok, fine. You don’t expect them to go wanting to sign up, do you? Mal’d be pissed.”

Sam considered River’s claims of being a Reaver-killer, and her brother’s Core mannerisms that not even three years as a fugitive had dented. While Simon had been quiet while he listened to Sam and River’s conversation, Sam had seen the confusion and skepticism in his eyes. But River had been steady and accepting, as intense as a hawk. Sam had gotten the odd impression that she could have taken her chopsticks and stabbed out someone’s eyes if they’d walked through the galley door with hostile intent.

In that she reminded him of Jo.

Sam was more concerned that he might not be able to keep her away. He couldn’t imagine what she’d been doing on Mal’s ship in the near-year since the Miranda broadcast. She was too intelligent, too perceptive, to be just lounging around.

“Probably not,” he said with forced blandness, not wanting to get into a fight today on top of everything else.

“Bullshit,” Dean said, his momentary irritation gone, a glint of mischief in his eye. “Girl comes on the ship, I stick you with breaking bad news to a civilian, and you’re wining and dining and giving her lore in under a half-hour?”

“Uh… more like the other way around…” Sam mumbled.

“If that’s how you roll, more power to you, Sammy. She stayed with you, so something’s going right, for once.”

Sam sighed and looked out the windows, past Anna. Dean had a damn annoying habit of being right.

“She’s… good, Dean. She knows what she’s doing.” She knows me, he added mentally. She knew the dreams he’d had, the ones that had come true, and had accepted them without qualm. He hadn’t gotten that from anyone, not even Dean. Sam might have classified that under “too good to be true,” if he hadn’t seen the protectiveness in Simon’s eyes. That kind of wary tension didn’t come from River being perfectly all right all of the time.

“Good.” Dean bypassed the obvious crude joke, much to Sam’s relief. “With Ellen and Jo gone, we could use another hand. Mal’ll be pissed if she’s hunting, but probably more pissed if she got her heart ripped out by accident. Cas, how long to Deadwood?”

“Two cycles,” Cas said, not looking up from his plotting computer.

“You should sleep while you can,” Anna added, not breaking from her self-appointed watch. “It will be a long hunt.”

Dean cursed all the way back to his cabin, the Tams clearly dismissed from his mind, Sam trailing behind him to his own, a feeling of foreboding in his gut. Whenever Anna said things like that, everything usually went pear-shaped soon after.

Simon looked up from his inventory of the infirmary to hear the weird sounds of metal-on-metal clashing. He was used to hearing that from Serenity’s engine room, not from the cargo bay. Most of the Impala’s crew were in their quarters, but he thought Bobby had stayed behind to do some chores. What chores required that amount of noise, though?

Simon left the infirmary and paused, thunderstruck, at the entrance to the cargo bay. River was wielding a machete in a martial dance, coached by Bobby, as she menaced a dummy propped up on a crate.

Bobby called out some advice, busily cleaning a shotgun as River’s blade flashed under the harsh lights. River feinted ducked, twirled away and came in again, her blade a sheet of white light as it sliced clean through the canvas and stuffing. The head thunked to the floor, and River followed it with a clean thrust to the heart.

Simon swallowed, mouth gone dry. He’d never really seen River like this with his own eyes. At Mr. Universe’s station he’d been on the floor bleeding, trying not to go into shock when River had made her heroic, seemingly suicidal leap through the blast doors. He had seen the aftermath, skewered bodies littering the floor and the blood on the sword and axe in River’s hands. It was only much later that he’d seen the recording of the fight from Mr. Universe’s security cameras. It had been while watching his brilliant, damaged little sister put down over a dozen Reavers that he’d seen her deal the death-blow to his image of the childlike waif he’d been struggling to save.

The genius schoolgirl she’d been was gone forever. Simon had helped her find a way to save herself; River had grown up after Miranda. She now helped fly the ship, aided Kaylee in the engine room, too aware now to just lay there and dream.

Simon knew that. He’d just never really seen it in front of his eyes. Maybe he should be less worried if the hunters accidentally brought something back alive, whether it was outlaw or animal or something out of a story. River could probably take it blindfolded, literally. Simon remembered Kaylee describing how River had calmly and coolly shot three of Niska’s mercenaries with her eyes closed.

River withdrew the machete and used it to flick the head to Bobby. He caught it handily, placed it back atop the torso, and used a couple of daggers to fix it into place. He saw them talking, River with her head cocked, asking questions, Bobby answering them with subtle gestures of his hands, indicating explosions, decapitation, and more violence. And here River seemed right at home.

Anna sat waiting at the top of the stairs, a blade polished and gleaming in her hands. She turned the mirrored steel, making the light play over River’s face, holding the weapon at an angle that promised pain.

“I’m going to join the hunt.” River spoke, her voice echoing in the corridor.

“You know they’re deadly.”

River took two more steps forward up the stairs, flowing as easily as her namesake, her hand jabbing out in a deceptively slow-looking jab that would have taken Anna in the throat. The angel rolled from her awkward position, shoving off the wall and seemingly taking flight as she thrust an elbow back. River went low, pushing off with her hands, her booted feet kicking up to help Anna in her arc through the air and down the stairs. She landed lightly as a feather, and River sprang after her.

Anna twisted away, but River followed, one hand locking on Anna’s wrist and pulling back. Anna moved with her, reaching back to wind River’s hair around her fist and yank. River went with the painful pull, and let her leg sweep under her, scything under Anna’s and bringing her down. Rolling, River took the knife and laid the flat along Anna’s neck, before jumping backwards, freeing her.

Anna rose up in a single fluid motion, sheathing her knife, and bowing shortly to River.

“So am I,” River said.

“You didn’t need to prove it to me,” Anna said.

“I did. You only whisper when you fight. I dare not be uncertain. I have no spell or silver,” River said.

Anna shook her head. “Neither do I.”

“Sam says you’re an angel.”

Anna nodded.

“My parents told me angels were messengers and warriors.”

“And you?”

“Know you’re more and less than that. We’ve pulled you too thin, took you far away from home. Hard to be a messenger on Earth when Earth is gone.”

“Hard to be real when real was taken far from you,” Anna said. She circled two steps to the right and cocked her head curiously.

“I found it again,” River said. “I was lucky. But you were not. You shine under the skin, a bird beating itself against a cage. I knew I needed to be here.”

Anna’s lips moved in a stiff smile, and her eyes luminescent in the ship’s lights. “You were meant to be here, River Tam. But not for me.”

River nodded. “I know.” She turned and looked down the hallway, her dark eyes piercing the silence of the ship. “Sam knows why.”

In the shadows of that silence, a figure lurked, eyes like the void, dark smoke behind his teeth, and murder in what passed for his heart.

Sam sat up so fast he nearly brained himself in his bunk, heart thundering in his chest. His head ached, and he drew his knees up to press his forehead against them, as if he could press the dream-images out of his mind. River’s wide-eyed stare, too knowing and too familiar, kept looking back out at him from his mind’s eye.

He hadn’t been hit that hard by a dream in months. But maybe it wasn’t so strange that he should have one now.

He just didn’t know how he was going to explain it to Dean or Simon.

River was waiting for the hunters when they walked down the Impala’s ramp, Anna at her side. Dean flicked his eyes at River, Anna, and then Sam in quick succession, and kept walking like this was all part of the plan. River turned and fell in with the others, keeping up with their long-legged stride easily.

“You sure?” Sam asked. River nodded, and smiled up at him. Her eyes held the same knowing, steady stare he’d seen last night, and his anxiety drained out of him at her rock-steadiness. “Dean’s got this planned out, so listen, ok?”

“I know,” she said. “I also know he and Mal are too much alike. Unplanned triumphs are their specialty.”

Sam shrugged off the extra flamethrower and tossed it to River, trying to hide a smile. She strapped it on over one of Anna’s spare jackets without missing a beat as the hunters penetrated the green wall of the forest.

Simon was frantic. He’d been pacing, waiting for hours for any word from the hunters. And specifically any word from his sister. He’d thought she was just resting at first when he couldn’t find her. Then maybe having a bite to eat, or meditating, or anything else than what he hadn’t wanted to believe. He hadn’t wanted to think that she’d joined the hunters on the surface of Deadwood, clearing out the forest of whatever horror was supposed to be lurking in its depths.

“I believed you were aware of your sister’s departure,” Castiel had said. “Certainly she seemed confident that she would not be stopped.” The only member of the crew to remain on board with him, the pilot had refused, with maddening calm, to try to raise the hunters on the communicators.

“Wendigos are exceptionally fast – unnecessary communication could distract someone at a crucial moment. Trust to Captain Winchester, he will not allow anyone to come to harm save that which we hunt. And trust to your sister, she is a warrior.”

“No one told me she was going!” Simon protested.

Castiel stared at him, simple curiosity in his expression, no sarcasm, no anger. “She went of her own free will, Simon Tam.”

Simon might have tried something exceptionally stupid, like going after her himself, if Castiel hadn’t kept the cargo bay doors locked and parked himself in front of them with maddening, implacable calm. Nothing Simon had said to him in those tense hours made him change his mind. After that, Simon had had nothing to do but wait, pace, and imagine what the hell might be going on out there.

The rest of the Impala’s crew returned well after dark, smelling of smoke and burned flesh, spattered with mud, tired but triumphant. Castiel opened up the cargo bay as the communicators crackled to life, and they came marching up the ramp like a conquering army returning to the capital.

“-and then, whoosh, he comes flying around the corner, screaming like a damn banshee, and runs right into the nest. Whole thing goes up like fireworks,” Dean was saying, waving a blackened flamethrower for emphasis.

“About damn time,” Bobby groused, lowering the fuel tank to the ground with a grunt. “Those things move faster than anything has a right to. I’m getting too old to be camping out.”

Simon’s first response at the hunters’ casual attitudes toward their jobs was the same flash of red-hot anger that had led him to punch Mal once before. They’d let River come along on some escapade that had involved burning things alive. He actually had his hand clenched when he noticed Sam gingerly removing his heavy, padded jacket.

“Hey, you know the best we could do was narrow the area down,” Sam said, shrugging off a jacket that bore claw marks on one side. There were no corresponding claw marks through his shirt underneath, but Simon was at Sam’s side instantly as he winced. Pushing the shirt up revealed a head-sized bruise, black and red and vicious-looking.

“Fine, fine, but do you have to be so damn happy about it?” Bobby said.

“Hell no, Bobby. Why be happy when I got you to grump about it?” Dean said with a grin.

The two kept exchanging snarky remarks as River took the jacket from Sam’s hands, startling Simon. He’d been so consumed with the thought of her in danger that he’d missed her actual presence. That thought left a chill, sinking feeling in his stomach.

“One inch lower and you would have been eviscerated. The claws were impressive,” she said, touching the rents in the tough fabric.

Simon wanted to lay into her, to yell out his fear that she could have been hurt, but he was trying to figure out if Sam’s ribs had been cracked.

“Well, I have you to thank for keeping me in once piece. You’ve got a good touch with the flamethrower,” Sam said warmly.

“Burned out that pattern like a pro!” Dean said enthusiastically, leaving off from joking with Bobby to join Sam and River. “Left, right, center, channeled them right where we needed them to go. You got good timing, sister. Glad to have you along on that one.”

“Better than you, ya lughead,” Bobby said, sitting down and stretching out a leg. Simon smoothed the last medicated bandage on Sam’s side, and had to turn to Bobby’s twisted ankle before he could get a word in edgewise.

“Cool head in a crisis, too,” Dean said, finally laying down his flamethrower. “Charged down that straggler and herded him back into the death trap. No damn fear at all.”

“I knew Sam wouldn’t miss,” River said. “He was ready, needed the kill to spur the others on.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, and tentatively put his hand over hers. She smiled up at him, and Simon clamped his mouth shut as he looked over the rest of the hunters for any injuries. His sister had taken a shine to the oversized Winchester, maybe a passing fancy, maybe a genuine liking. River was eighteen going on eighty. She didn’t need Simon’s permission.

He lasted all of twenty seconds before going over to Sam to make sure the bruise on his face didn’t have a concussion attached to it.

“Simon is worried.”

Sam was sitting in one of the nooks in the galley, one where there was a scrap of privacy to be had. He didn’t think Simon knew about it, and just as well. The doctor had nearly burst trying to contain himself after the hunt, and Sam really didn’t want to be cornered. “Other than the obvious?”

“He’s worried about all things. It’s his nature. He worries about me most of all. He traded one set of worries for another in the last year and that worries him.”

Sam can’t help but grin ear to ear at that statement, and River answers his smile.

“It’s an appropriate absurdity. I have a possible solution for him.”

“Let’s hear it,” Sam said, settling back in his chair.

“I should leave Serenity.”

Sam sat back up abruptly. He had about five obvious questions on his lips and stopped himself from asking them when he saw River’s raised eyebrow. Instead he gestured at her to continue.

“He loves Kaylee, they copulate happily when he thinks I’m in my stable periods, but there’s always the thought in the back of his head that I could disrupt his happiness at any time, if I were to go wrong,” she said. “But if I were not on the ship, he would only have to worry distantly, instead of constantly. I love my brother, and I owe him.”

“But there’s more than that,” Sam said, leaning forward. “I left Dean for a few years, because I didn’t want to be a hunter anymore. I left Dad too, and thought that would somehow fix everything I didn’t like about my life.”

“I will never be able to fix everything in my life,” River said, fixing him with an intense stare. Sam felt a faint pain at that statement.

“So you’re not running away?”

“I’ve been running away for years. I want to run to something, Sam. I want Simon to be able to cheer me on from the sidelines, not be running alongside me, ready to catch me if I should fall. He needs to look away from me.”

“But a hunter’s ship?” Sam asked.

“I’ve eaten Reavers for breakfast, Sam. I need a job that will keep me on my toes.”

Somehow, Sam never doubted her for a second. He reached out to take her hand and nodded solemnly. “You’re going to have to work on convincing Simon and Dean both. He loved you against those wendigos, but he doesn’t want to break up anyone’s family.”

He wanted to say more, a lot more, but couldn’t lay all of his cards on the table, not this soon.

“There’s nothing to break, Sam. Simon deserves more than I can give him on Serenity. We just have to make sure that I’m wanted on the Impala for a long time,” she said, her eyes fixed right on him.

“Ok,” Sam said, understanding. Hadn’t he tried to leave hunting for a similar reason? “We have a vampire job on Newhope in a week.”

“Bobby’s been showing me the appropriate techniques.”

“Let’s up the ante.” Sam stood and held up the key to the armory. River grinned at him and linked her arm with his as they strolled over to look at implements of monster destruction.

Dean looked up from the open panel in front of him as Simon tentatively entered the engine room. His hands were stained with grease and mechanical lube, and there was a smudge of dirt alongside his nose. Simon felt a pang of longing for Kaylee even as he stiffened his spine. He’d punched Mal for taking River along on that heist before Miranda, and he was prepared to do the same to Dean for making him worry. And he’d known Mal; Dean was barely more than an acquaintance.

“If you’re here to yell, you can just take the whole conversation and space it,” Dean said, wiping his hands briefly with a rag before digging a spanner out of his toolbox. “River wanted to go. She talked to Anna, Anna loaned her some gear, and she was waiting for us when we left. No one asked her to come.”

“You couldn’t even drop a line back to the ship?” Simon demanded.

“We were a little busy. Wendigos are fast-.”

“Castiel said,” Simon cut in.

“You still think I’m full of shit, don’t you? Look, River’s a damn good draft pick. ‘Course, from what Sam said, she’s handled tougher than wendigos.” Dean raised an eyebrow as he tightened a loose fitting.

“I know.”

“No, you don’t know.” Dean dropped the spanner on the deck with a loud clang. He tugged at the hem of his shirt, bringing an old scar on his abdomen into view. Simon stepped closer for a better view. He’d seen knife wounds before, vehicle accidents, even wild animal attacks. This was none of them. No wild animal could have made a claw pattern like that, nothing so precise or so large.

“Hellhound. I got a near-matching one from a werewolf on the other side.” He dropped his shirt and pulled down his collar to reveal a tattoo below his collarbone. “Anti-demon possession mark. They’re bodiless, can jump into people and make them do what they want. This isn’t bullshit. This isn’t crazy talk. This is real.”

Simon didn’t think Dean had managed to scar himself for his benefit and felt a little of the off-balance feeling when he’d first learned that some of the scary stories of the black were actually true. There was no reason for all of the Impala’s crew to be in on some elaborate hoax or joke… and if they had been, he belatedly realized, River would have seen through them.

They both could be incredibly stubborn sometimes.

Simon breathed out slowly, feeling his worldview changing, the axis tilting a little more off-center, as he took in what he’d been hearing and seeing over the past week.

“So demons can possess…” he said slowly, trying to make sense of it, when something horrible occurred to him. “Demon Reavers?” The idea made Simon ill.

“Doubt it. Any demons jumping into a Reaver would jump right out again, screaming.”

Simon looked at Dean quizzically. “You know this how?”

“Ran into some Reavers once. And then I ran into some demons while I was running from the Reavers. Demons helped me fight off the Reavers before going back to trying to tear my head off.”

Simon digested that for a second, wanting to make all this new information fit into some kind of solid, reasonable box. “Demons really exist?”

“Earth-That-Was had a whole host of nasties that go bump in the night and most of them came with us when we left. There’s a lot more places for them to hide, now. We have enemies, and we know how to fight ‘em.”

“So do we,” Simon said.

“I got the gist. But I’m guessing your shadow Fed goons aren’t likely to hide out in the woods and try to stab you from behind. We’ve got some enemies that followed our ancestors from Earth. The wendigos were working with one of those; nasty hwen dan, been feuding with us for ages. The only good thing about our personal demons is that when you kill them no one goes looking for them.” Dean waited for Simon to say something. “You ok?”

“Ah… yes. I think.”

“Look, one good thing about what we hunt is that they have patterns, habits, ways to stop that usually don’t involve running for the hills or blowing them to shreds.” Dean picked up his spanner again. “It’s what we do.”

Simon looked over at the doorway. “River is… exceptionally smart. Genius. Even more than me, and I was one of the best in my class. If she puts her mind to it, she can become the best at anything. I know she can do this. But you can’t just leave me behind without saying something. I need to know where she is!”

Dean fiddled with something inside the panel, put the spanner back down, and picked up a small probe. “Why aren’t you talking with River?”

“What?” Simon asked.

“Why aren’t you talking with River? I let her come, yeah, and I didn’t talk to you, but I don’t have to, Doc. You’re on my ship by accident, and you’re being real good in paying me back. But what about her? She’s paying her own way. And if that’s messing with whatever rules you got in your family, why aren’t you talking to her?” Dean asked.

“Because-. I don’t-. She-,” Simon opened and closed his mouth a few times and didn’t have an answer.

“You know where she is?” Dean persisted.

“Galley, I think.”

“With Sam.”

Simon nodded.

Dean turned to look at him full on. “She’s your sister, dude. She’s moving away from you. It’s enough to freak anyone out.” Dean pried open a smaller panel and looked into it as he kept talking.

“Dad raised us to be hunters, from just about as long as I can remember. Sam got to hating it after a while. Hated moving around, hated being different, hated knowing what’s out there. So he studied his ass off and got himself a scholarship for some fancy school on Beaumonde. Dad nearly blew a coil when Sam left. And I barely talked to him for three years.”

“But you’re hunting together now,” Simon said, a question in his tone.

“Some blast from the past shook Sam out of his nest. We get some long-term enemies in this job. If that hadn’t of happened, I’m not sure where we’d be now. Probably a few systems apart.” Dean put the probe into the panel and twisted something delicately. “I wanted to help him every step of the way. And you know what? The best thing he told me I ever did for him was letting him try his own way for once.”

“I just never thought she’d pick…”

“This? Funny how life works out. What’s she been doing with herself ‘til now?”

Simon didn’t even have to think very hard on that. River had been taught, been experimented upon, escaped, and had been healing. She’d been doing very little; everything had been done to her.

Dean seemed to take Simon’s silence as an answer. “The reason you were going to try to rip into me was because River would’ve talked circles around you and you know Sam would cut his arm off rather than hurt the lady.”

Simon was startled into a laugh and sobered slightly when he remembered the bruise on Sam’s side. Had he taken that for River?

“How is Sam?” Simon asked.

“Sam’s good,” Dean said, the blunt comment taking Simon by surprise. “I’m not selling him short, there’s not a lot of ‘good’ in a lot of people. Loyal. Smart. Clever at what he does. Cares too damn much. How’s River?”

“Unpredictable. Wonderful. She’s…” Simon was at a loss for words and could only think of the way he’d first described her to Serenity’s crew. “A gift.”

Dean nodded, giving a grunt of satisfaction.

“You think you’re gonna be ok now?” Dean asked. “Not gonna go upsetting my first mate or getting into family feuds now that I’ve dispensed all my captainly advice?”

“Very insightful, yes, Captain,” Simon said, turning to go. He had a hell of a lot to chew on.

“Hey,” Dean said, making Simon wait. “Took Sam and me a while to straighten ourselves out after Beaumonde. Since you’re a genius and your sister is a double genius, I figure you can get the hang of it sooner.”

Simon nodded slowly. “Where’s the next job?”

“Vampires on Newhope. Should be able to get you to Mal soon after that. He’s close, but work comes first.”

Sam could still feel Simon’s nervousness as River adjusted the machete sheath on her thigh, even though they were nearly a mile from the ship. But despite the nerves practically radiating off the doc, he hadn’t said much to Sam. There hadn’t been any dramatic confrontations or yelling matches or stern warnings to stay away from River. Only a very intense, short discussion in the infirmary when Simon had been changing the medicated dressing on Sam’s side two days before.

“River’s been doing really well for most of the last year. I haven’t seen her this happy before.”

Sam had stiffened at the comment and tried to look over at Simon.

“I… like her,” Sam said quietly.

“Most people do. But she has bad days. Really bad days sometimes. Days when she sees too much.” Simon finished taping down the bandage and quickly wound gauze over it.

“Nightmares,” Sam said positively.

“Sometimes,” Simon nodded. “Just… be careful, all right?”

The man had looked nearly lost and all Sam could do was nod his agreement. For a minute, he could see River in him, telling him something important but not necessarily using direct communication. Sam was actually very comfortable with that.

It had been a remarkably quiet leave-taking on Newhope two days later, Simon only wishing River luck and hugging her until she’d nearly gone blue.

He had shot Sam a glance that promised pain if River came back harmed, though. Sam could live with that.

The one bad thing about hunting on the Outer Rim planets was the distance. With more tradition-bound monsters, you could get into their home range, circle them, and take them out with not too much trouble. But the smarter, more adaptable ones? They learned how to fly ships, blend in, take the stance of just another rancher or homesteader out to carve out a living. Sometimes that meant there were fewer civilians around when a hunt went down. Other times it meant there was a very long hike if you wanted to get near them without tipping them off that there were hunters come callin’.

River stalked next to Sam, almost ghostlike in the twilight. She was alert, head up, muscles taut and ready to run at Dean’s signal. Sam put a hand on her arm, lightly, warning her to relax. The vamps wouldn’t come out until night, and they didn’t have to remain on high alert until then. It was the easiest way to burn out, expecting an attack and remaining on a hair trigger.

“Hey, relax,” Sam whispered.

“Shouldn’t,” River said. “This is real, no game for children.”

“I know,” Sam said. “Believe me. I’ve been doing this since I was born, just about literally.”

River reached out and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder at the bitter undertone in his voice.

“Children shouldn’t have to fight, but it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. Simon taught me that,” River said. “If I’d known how, I would have fought sooner.” They both paused at Dean’s signal, and River crouched down next to Sam as they moved into hiding.

“You’re doing a damn good job now,” Sam pointed out.

“Have to. I learned to dance the dance of death when dreaming, because it helped settle the ghosts.”

At one point, Sam would have found that statement utterly confusing. He wasn’t sure if Dean would consider it a good thing that River was making perfect sense to him now.

“And the ghosts?” Sam asked.

“Resting.” River reached out to squeeze Sam’s arm briefly, and caught his eyes in the dark. “It’s the best I can hope for.”

“It’s enough,” Sam said sincerely.

“Less talk,” Dean snapped. “We got company.”

The sun was barely down, and the farmhouse across the field was showing unexpected signs of life.

“They shouldn’t be movin’ this early,” Bobby said.

“They’re on the hunt,” Anna said and moved silently into the night.

“Hell,” Dean said. He directed Bobby to go the other way and Sam and River to stay where they were. “I hate it when she’s right.”

“She always is,” River said.

Out in the woods, something growled.

“Go!” Dean said and moved after Bobby. Sam and River kept their eyes on the farmhouse, River’s eyes straying up into the trees. At a touch from her, Sam looked up and swallowed hard. There were vampires up there, leaping from branch to branch, breaching the perimeter with contemptuous ease. Startled, Sam thrust his machete into his belt and pulled out his gun. Maybe he could surprise them into dropping if he fired, or at least bring them back around so they couldn’t circle towards the others.

“Wait,” River whispered. Sam hesitated and then heard a boom of a shotgun from Bobby’s direction. Sam swore and grabbed his machete again as the vampires hurled themselves from the trees and took off running. River kept right up with Sam as they loped into the night, knives flashing like the teeth of wolves.

Short, choked-off screams echoed in the woods as the hunters caught up with the vampires, slicing some throats and fending off getting their own ripped out as hunters and prey circled in a tight dance. Sometimes the hunters fought back-to-back while the vampires menaced them, others the vampires struggled to break through a loose circle of hunters. Anna fought like a machine, blade flicking out with painful precision to send heads flying all over the forest, while Bobby and Dean alternated between guns and blades, distracting with one so the other could move in.

They’d nearly gotten the numbers down to something acceptable, only a couple left, when one of them got lucky, body-slamming Dean and bouncing him off a tree, leaving a gap in their circle of death.

The remaining vampires took off, leaving Dean’s prone body behind as they headed towards some lights. Sam looked up for their source and cursed loudly. In the running fight in the woods, he hadn’t realized they’d circled back so close to the Impala. Which shouldn’t have the lights on. Castiel should have kept the ship dark and buttoned up, not lit up like a casino with the cargo bay door open.

Why the hell was the door open? Sam squinted into the light, and saw a very surprised Simon standing next to the control panel, bag in his hand, and Castiel lunging down the stairs towards him, an unexpected expression of surprise on his usually stoic face.

And running towards the tempting open door and the vulnerable doctor, two blood-speckled vampires.

River’s head came up as her arm came down as the scene came into focus. She turned and took off running hell-for-leather for the ship.

“River!” Sam called when he realized she was charging in alone.

Sam ran after her, his long-legged stride keeping up with her fear-induced flight. Dean was still struggling to his feet, Anna was still making sure of vamps on the far side of the circle, that only left – “Bobby, coming your way!” Sam bellowed.

River and Sam came into the harsh circle of light in front of the Impala’s cargo bay at the same time the vampires were wincing slightly at the brightness. It wouldn’t stop them, but it did slow them down, and that was Simon’s saving grace. Castiel was halfway down the stairs to the ground floor, and Simon had just realized the danger, eyes wide when he saw the vicious, rip-saw fangs of the vamps. Shotguns boomed in the night, Castiel and Bobby firing at once, making the vampires stagger with the force.

River put on an extra burst of speed and leapt high and gracefully into the air, her machete clearing her sheath and decapitating the vampire reaching for Simon. Blood sheeted from the wound and the blade, speckling Simon with red, as the body collapsed on the deck. She landed like a bird, whirling to face the last threat. The other vampire turned and launched himself at a new target, away from River’s deadly reach, before Sam could readjust, and ripped into Bobby with a roar. Sam felt like red had covered his vision as he closed the distance. River’s blade stabbed the vampire, careful not to pierce him through, and Sam sliced downward, mangling the head and the horrid mouth.

Bobby fell free with a pained gasp as Sam wrenched his blade free and made the final stroke, casting the head away.

“Simon!” River called imperiously, holding her bloody blade away from her as she stooped over Bobby’s bloody body. Sam felt himself go pale as River crouched next to Bobby’s head, his bloody lips moving as he tried to say something. The doctor shook off his own shock to kneel next to him, and moved aside the ruins of Bobby’s shirt to look at the wounds.

“Why the hell did you open the door?” Dean demanded, fear making his voice harsh.

“I heard River scream,” Simon said flatly, hands flying as he labored over Bobby. Sam felt a vague stab of curiosity at that even through his fear for Bobby’s life; River hadn’t called out until Bobby had fallen - after the door was already open.

“You should not have been able to open the door,” Castiel said.

“I’m dating an engineer,” Simon said. If Dean was looking for guilt to assuage his anger, it wasn’t going to happen; Sam recognized the steel in Simon’s expression. He’d thought he’d heard his family in pain and after that nothing else mattered.

Simon put patches over the rents in Bobby’s skin, stopping the worst of the bloodflow, and tilted his head to listen closely to his heart through the stethoscope.

When Simon shook his head, Sam thought his heard was going to stop.

“No, it’s not all lost,” River said fiercely, taking Sam’s hand to make him look at her. “He needs serenity.”

“He’s not going to die!” Sam snapped, trying to conceal his worry when he saw how pale Bobby was.

“No, he’s not, not if we can get him to Serenity,” she said.

“We don’t have time for one-with-the-universe bullshit. Fix him!” Dean roared.

“No, no,” Sam said, brain finally engaging. Simon was still quietly working, intent on keeping Bobby from death, but he nodded in silent affirmation of River’s words. “Cas, get us to Mal’s ship, now!” After nearly three years on Serenity, the doc had to have gotten a better medical set-up than Bobby’s jury-rigged first aid station.

Castiel vanished back up to the cockpit, while River and Sam helped get Bobby inside. He barely noticed Anna disappearing upstairs with Castiel. All his attention was focused on the quiet circle of him, Dean, Simon, and River, with Bobby barely clinging to life.

“River didn’t scream,” Dean said, his voice low and intense even as he kept a barely-respectable working distance from Simon.

“I know what her voice sounds like, trust me, it was her.”

“I didn’t, Simon,” River said. “I didn’t scream.” He looked up at her, guilt clouding his expression for a minute, before putting his head back down to work.

Dean turned towards Sam as Simon injected drugs and monitored vital signs. “What tripped Doc’s alarm, then?” Dean asked. “We miss a vamp with a ventriloquist kink?”

Sam shook his head. “No… I don’t think so. It was just the two and they’re…” Sam glanced over at the two decapitated bodies.

“Hell,” Dean let out a deep breath. “Anna warned us this was gonna be a bad one.”

“She said that about the wendigos.”

“Yeah, but she’s never wrong. The wendigos were nasty, but not as bad as they could have been. One of the vamps must have been a screamer.” Dean set his jaw, but nodded slightly at Simon. “We’ve done stupider for less reason. Hold down the fort, Sam, I gotta get Mal on the comm.” Back stiff, Dean left for the cockpit, leaving Sam in the blood-splattered cargo bay to help Simon and River.

It seemed a long time later when River pulled Sam away, prying his hand away from Bobby’s. “Let Simon work. We’re not alone.”

“I know,” Sam said, hugging her close as they stepped out of the infirmary.

“It’s going to be messy, Sam. Dangerous,” River warned. Sam pulled back to look at her, and could see how pale she was.

“It’s ok. It’s going to be ok. Simon’s one of the best; you told me that.”

“I’m not worried about Simon,” she whispered. Her hand clenched hard in his jacket, and she pressed her head to his chest. Like she was trying to listen to his heart… or force her head inside. “Bobby will be ok.”

River sounded confident, but Sam could feel her trembling against him.

Simon had never been so glad to see Mal’s face on the screen, with the rest of Serenity’s crew trying to peek in from every corner. Kaylee succeeded the most, and Simon felt nearly dizzy with relief. Bobby was a tough guy and had held up admirably under Simon’s care, but he needed more than sutures and simple analgesics.

“Aren’t you a sight for sore-,” Mal started.

“Mal, I have a gravely injured man and I need things prepped in the infirmary before we board.” Simon cut off the greetings and reeled off a list of drugs and tools he needed out and ready the second he hit Serenity’s deckplates. Dean was a silent, looming presence behind him, not quite absolving him, not quite blaming him for Bobby.

“Copy that,” Zoe said, her face momentarily filling the screen before vanishing to the side.

“One minute to docking,” Mal said.

“Heard,” Castiel’s voice broke in.

“Cap’n, that cruiser that’s been followin’ us around?” Kaylee said.

“Please tell me we shook him off, because I don’t fancy trying to ship-dock with a patrol breathing down our necks,” Mal said sharply.

“Looks like he lost us, but I don’t think we should linger long.” Kaylee flashed Simon a quick smile on the screen before turning back to staring at the scanner.

“Sending coordinates,” Castiel said. “Countdown on my mark…”

Simon could only smile briefly at Kaylee as he called for Sam and River to help him.

“I’ll need you, mei-mei,” Simon said. “I need you for the operation.” He didn’t even look up as a faint shudder went through the ship, signaling the two ships had managed to dock.

“Can’t,” she said, her voice a little distant. Simon looked up sharply, dismayed at seeing the too-focused gaze that marked River’s bad days. “Guardian at the gate. Can’t let the darkness past. Safer with me here, Simon.” She looked back at Sam, standing near the cargo bay doors, ready to move Bobby to Serentiy.

“River…” Simon’s voice softened, and he looked over at Sam. “I know you… want to stay, but I need some help. Just for now, to help Bobby, ok? We can talk after, I promise.”

“Safer without me, Simon. We’re not alone.”

Dean’s voice boomed through the cargo bay, “Ok, we’re solid. Opening the doors!”

The cargo bay doors cracked open, and Zoe and Mal slipped through, crowding around Bobby’s stretcher with quickly choked-off exclamations about the wounds. “Come on, Doc. This one looks more dead than alive.”

They barely looked up at River, trusting Simon to take care of her, maybe not even registering the blood drying on her clothes from the vampires. Everyone’s attention was focused on Bobby, on Simon and River, not minding anything else.

“River, you’re not alone, I promise,” Simon said and reached out to take her hand. “You won’t be alone.”

“It’s all right,” Sam said, putting both his massive hands on her shoulders. “I’ll be ok. You go take care of Bobby, and I’ll hold down the fort. We’ll catch back up in no time, I promise, even if I have to pilot her myself to get back to you, ok?”

River opened her mouth, a gleam of returning stability coming to her eyes, when Dean’s voice broke in.

“Alliance patrol vessel on long-range scanners. Pick where you’re going, people, and lock down the doors! Move!”

River went pale again, Simon looked over his shoulder towards his infirmary, and Sam got a haunted look on his face, guilt stamped across his features. His grip loosened as Simon pulled River away, sliding them both through the doors and sealing the two ships apart.

With a shudder, Serenity and the Impala separated.

“What the hell, Sam?” Dean asked the question without any real heat, his attention focused on leading the Alliance vessel on a little tail-chase until they could launch their decoy buoy. He kept an eye on the scanners as Castiel used every trick as their disposal to keep the Impala as the choice target. No damn point, Sam knew Dean was thinking, in risking everything to get Bobby to Serenity only to get her caught before Simon could work his magic.

“What was I supposed to do, Dean?” Sam said, imagining he could still feel River pressing against him. It was like she had been trying to press understanding into him, trying to tell him something other than words, but Sam couldn’t understand. But Simon could. It had been the first time he’d seen any hint of the damage that River had suffered in her past. And hadn’t he felt like a horse’s ass for not knowing what to do or say? “Simon needed her help for Bobby, and I don’t know much more than stitching up cuts.”

“Could’a gone with her.”

“You have two vamp bodies on the ship, Bobby’s not here, Castiel’s busy, Anna wouldn’t know a normal ship chore if it bit her on the ass, so you need me too!” Sam said defensively.

“She probably needs you more.”

Sam turned away, jaw clenched.

“Hey,” Dean said softly. “She isn’t Madison.”

Sam turned back. “I know that.”

“You’re flypaper for freaks, Sam. Learn to love it, because they sure as hell love you.”

Sam stared at Dean like he’d just grown a second head. “What?”

“Go police the vamp bodies if you can’t get it. This is going to be one long-ass chase.”

Feeling sick to his stomach, Sam descended to the cargo bay.

River was curled up in the corner of the infirmary, an uncomfortably familiar place. She’d spent the first few weeks on Serenity in here, not seeing it for what it was, uncertain of exactly when or who or how the universe was shaping itself around her. Simon hated seeing her like that, reverted to the frightened girl he’d rescued three years ago. Even if she’d competently helped him stitch Bobby’s organs back into place and seal his muscle and skin into position, the rest of her mind had been elsewhere.

She hadn’t moved since the operation, only kept her eyes nailed on the door, her hand on the machete blade at her side. Simon had only managed to wipe the blood from her face and clothes under protest and wondered if he had done her any favors by wresting her away from the Impala.

“Mei-mei?” Simon asked and River turned to look at him. “Are you all right?”

River seemed to wake up slightly and her gaze sharpened. “Simon.” Her soft, dreamy voice held an unexpected note of steel. “Stay here.”

She launched herself off of the counter and pulled a leather packet from her pocket. She poured a thick line of salt over the threshold and shut the door behind her. To his dismay, Simon heard her engage the lock with the whine that meant she’d used the override code. He wouldn’t be getting out now.

“River!” he yelled, pounding on the window.

“Simon, stay!” she shouted and ran hell-for-leather up the stairs.

Simon pressed himself helplessly against the glass as he watched her disappear into the darkness.

---

Sam started as the comm crackled to life. They were supposed to be maintaining radio silence; Mal had insisted.

“I saw the shadow, Sam. I remember what you dreamed.” River’s voice filled the cockpit of the Impala, abruptly clicked off again, and Dean swore.

“Sam, tell your girlfriend you two can exchange sweet crazies when we’re not on a dodge-.”

“Turn around,” Sam said, fear gripping him from the brief glimpse of River’s frightened face.

“What?” Dean asked.

“Castiel, bring her around, now!”

“Sam, what the hell?” Dean’s voice was taking on Dad’s stubborn tone and Sam knew he had to talk fast.

“You were right, Dean, I should have gone with her. She kept saying something about danger, and I wasn’t listening. Dean, those vamps shouldn’t have known we were coming. We came in dark, we crept in on foot, we did everything right, and they still got the drop on us. It was like someone tipped them off. Then Simon heard River scream when she didn’t and got him to open the door. There’s only one monster we pissed off that badly that could have gotten to them that fast.”

“Demons,” Dean said flatly. “Don’t tell me you-.”

“I had a vision,” Sam cut in. They both knew those had been getting a lot less frequent and reliable since they’d shut down the Hellgate, but it didn’t mean they were entirely wrong. “River knew. They’re gunning for us, Dean.”

“On Mal’s ship?” Dean went pale. “Shit, Bobby. Cas, go!”

The demons didn’t want to take on Castiel and Anna, but vulnerable Bobby and new hunter River were fair game. In the chaos of the hunt aftermath, and with the right kind of spells, it would have been possible to hide on the Impala for a short time, even from angels. But on Mal’s ship, a demon would have free reign. He could set things up to his liking, possessing the crew or taking out Bobby at his leisure. Or he could take down new opposition before it became too hard. River was going to be one of the best, Sam knew it. And now, so did one of their enemies. Forget the Alliance, there was something much more at stake here.

---

Simon couldn’t get out, but he could monitor a little of what was going on through the ship’s comm system. Doors were locking all over the ship, and there had been a very brief burst of subspace communication to the Impala. It reminded him of Jubal Early’s attack on Serenity, his careful separation of the crew, the breakdown of communications, leaving just one person stalking the corridors, looking for his prey.

Simon’s leg ached at the memory.

Something moved at the corner of his eye out of the infirmary windows, and Simon turned to see a furtive figure dart from behind one of Serenity’s cargo crates to the wall next to the control panel. With short, economical motions, the stranger sliced his palm with a dagger and daubed a diagram on the wall, his short red hair gleaming like fire in the cargo bay lights. Simon ducked down instinctively as the stranger started to turn around, and grabbed a small mirror to look behind him through the window.

When the stranger turned, staring, Simon could see his eyes were solid black. His guts turn to solid ice as a forcible sensation of wrong washed over him. River was out there alone with that thing. Simon dug in a drawer for his seldom-used bone saw and crept to the door, holding his makeshift weapon in both white-knuckled hands.

He prayed that the Winchester brothers had been right about his sister, because he knew River was going to let that thing hurt the crew only over her dead body.

---

Castiel accomplished the ship-dock with admirable efficiency, syncing with Serenity and locking them in without a single wasted second. As the clamps engaged, Castiel grabbed his own shotgun from beside his seat and followed the Winchesters to the cargo bay without a single word. Anna was already waiting, tight and set, covering the left as Castiel moved to the right. Dean moved to the middle as Sam triggered the cargo bay doors, his own gun covering the expanding opening. For a second, nothing happened, just the eerie silence of a space waiting in fear.

Then Castiel and Anna erupted in a flash of brilliant white light and vanished.

Sam blinked the spots from his eyes and looked over at Dean, who set his jaw and re-shouldered his weapon. Both of them stalked forward, covering each side of Serenity’s cargo bay.

“Banishing sigils. Wong ba duhn,” Dean swore.

“Let’s go,” Sam whispered. He jerked with his head towards one of the staircases, and Dean nodded, hitting the button to close the cargo bay doors as he did. Sam pulled out a packet of salt and poured down a line across the doorway; bad enough trying to find a demon on one ship, let alone two. And wouldn’t it be a bitch to have the demon sneak back aboard the Impala and steal it while they were running around over on Mal’s ship? It would take Castiel and Anna a while to get themselves back from wherever they’d been sent.

“We’re putting a devil’s trap on the ramp after this,” Dean muttered.

“I hear you.”

“Hsst!” Dean hissed, chin jerking towards the opening in front of them. Through the doorway at the back, Sam could see Simon on the other side of a window, face paper-white, pointing up. Sam didn’t even stop to think, just jerked his gun upwards and fired, winging the demon that had tried to leap down on them from the catwalk above.

Dean moved back and fired again, missing the cat-fast demon as he scrambled behind some boxes. Snarling, he moved around the side, Sam covering him, and suddenly yelled as the demon sprang over the crates to latch onto Sam. The sulfur stench had Sam’s eyes watering even as the demon twisted his arms, forcing him to drop the shotgun and then turned him to face Dean.

“So sweet, Winchesters. So adorably predictable,” the demon said, his voice a deeply-amused rasp. “Running off without a plan, without back-up, as usual. And all for little old me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Dean said, his aim steady even as the demon hid behind Sam’s larger frame. “I just hate leaving trash behind.”

The demon wrenched Sam’s arms again, and pain radiated from their sockets. Sam grimaced but kept silent, his eyes darting until they found who he’d hoped for. River was wedged between a wall support protection and a crate, feet ready to push off from the shadows. She was halfway behind Sam, out of the demon’s line of sight, and gave him the tiniest of smiles as she stared at them. Sam knew that look, the same look she’d used during the wendigo hunt and the vampire hunt. She was calculating the angles, looking for the weak point, the blind spot.

Sam let himself sag just a little in the demon’s grip and tapped a useless finger against the rune-covered knife on his hip. Dean’s eyes shifted imperceptibly down and then up again.

“It’s not just trash,” the demon taunted. “Little sister isn’t going to get the chance to cut her teeth on any more of us. You gotta learn, Winchesters, that you aren’t always going to have friends there to take the fall for you-.”

River sprang from hiding, and the demon turned to face the new threat, dragging Sam with him. She rolled low as Sam suddenly made himself a solid, dead weight in the demon’s arms, putting his head low enough that Dean could take the shot. Rock salt blasted where he was a second ago, making the demon scream, and Sam’s short fall was enough to bring his hip into range of River’s hand. She snatched the knife just as the demon screamed and hooked her foot on the demon’s leg, twisting herself around and up to plunge the knife into his chest in a single fluid motion.

The demon flared and flickered, burning from the inside out, before collapsing on the deck, silent and still. From the opposite side of the cargo bay, through the infirmary windows, Simon was pressed against the glass, jaw sagging open in astonishment.

---

“You very much mind telling me why you felt the need to lock us all up like a bunch of zoo critters?”

That was the first thing out of Mal’s mouth when River set him free and Sam could see she could barely hold back the smile. But she managed, and looked entirely serious and businesslike as she helped him up the ladder.

“Out of necessity, Captain. I couldn’t have you running around underfoot, now could I?” River asked with great solemnity. “It wasn’t your fight.”

“My boat, my fight,” Mal said, color rising in his cheeks. “You went and took that away from me.”

“No,” River shook her head. “Not your fight. It wasn’t after you. It was after me.”

“What was it?” Zoe asked, leaning against the corridor wall. “I’ve never seen anything go out like that.”

“Demon,” Simon piped up, before Sam could say anything.

“A what now?” Jayne asked.

“Demon,” River repeated. “I caught its attention during the hunt, and it felt the need for me to die. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it here, but there was an aphasic episode and my point was less than clear.”

“The hell it wasn’t-.”

“It happens,” River cut Mal off abruptly. “I am less than whole.”

Mal grumbled something under his breath, and Inara moved in with artful timing to give River a hug and touch Mal with a soothing hand.

“Thank you for saving us. I don’t think anyone else would have known what to do.”

“I could’ve done it,” Jayne muttered.

“I had help,” River said.

“You weren’t doin’ too bad on your own,” Sam said and River grinned.

“Don’t compliment me in front of Mal. You’ll make him mad all over again,” she warned.

Mal considered that comment beneath his notice and changed the subject.

“So. You and River.”

“Me and River,” Sam agreed, their hands finding each other’s easily.

Mal shot a look at him, then over Sam’s shoulder at Dean.

“Hey, don’t go looking at me. They’ve both got a spot on my boat if they want it. River’s got skills, and she’s a good hunter already. She’s welcome on the Impala, with a full share,” Dean said.

“Full share? Bobby will squawk,” Sam said. River smiled.

“Bobby’s on bed rest for a month, so he can squawk from there,” Dean retorted. “Anyway, Mal, that’s the situation.”

“How about some of us getting a full share?” Jayne asked.

Mal looked ruminative, ignoring Jayne entirely. Zoe spoke up.

“Sounds like a place to stretch yourself, though we’re gonna miss you,” Zoe said to River. Mal glared, but Zoe held her ground. “Mal, River can’t run around here doing errands forever.”

“He knows,” River said, getting Mal to transfer his glare to her. “He just hates being blindsided.”

“Ain’t that the truth of man,” Mal said. He looked over at Sam. “You know what you’re getting yourself into?”

Dean shook his head before Sam could answer. “Any man who thinks they know what they’re getting into with a woman is a liar.”

“That’s God’s honest truth,” Jayne declared. Dean grinned.

Inara smiled beautifully and walked over to Sam to pull him into range for a chaste kiss on either cheek. “Never forget that and you’ll do fine.” She turned to River and gave her a hug. “You either.”

“Men are a mystery arcane, par on the meaning of life and the taste of strawberries,” River said, linking her arm with a slightly-confused Sam and leaning her head against him.

Dean raised an eyebrow, and Mal gave him an evil grin. “Good luck, you’ll be dealing with those pearls of wisdom the rest of the trip out.”

---

River’s bags were at her feet, just a few things she needed from her old life, as she stood in the cargo bays between the two ships.

“I love you,” River said and hugged Simon until he thought he was going to pass out. “You deserve better.”

“River-,” he protested, but she cut him off.

“Go be with Kaylee. Have fun. Love each other. I’m just a wave away, always.” She hugged him again, and Simon hugged her back, chin digging into her leather jacket. “I can fight my own nightmares now, Simon.”

If a few hot tears managed to decorate River’s jacket before Simon pulled away, neither of them commented on it.

“Make sure you keep Simon on his toes,” River said as Kaylee enveloped her in a hug.

“I will,” Kaylee said, and let go reluctantly. She shyly held out the bag of jacks, and River took them, tucking them reverently into a pocket.

“Be happy,” Inara said clasping River’s hands.

“I am,” River said, and kissed Inara’s cheek.

Zoe pulled her a handclasp like a soldier and nodded solemnly. “Shoot straight out there.”

“Always.”

River turned to Jayne next, who looked like he’d rather be elsewhere. “I’ll always remember threatening you fondly,” she said.

He shifted from side to side uncomfortably. “Um… me too.”

Mal stepped up last and pulled her into a quick hug. “Gonna miss you, little albatross.”

“Don’t say that, someone will hear,” River whispered loudly and hugged him back.

“Hey!” Dean’s yell echoed from the Impala. “We gotta pick up Ellen and Jo and get to Persephone sometime this week. Let’s go!”

Sam waved away Dean’s yell as he came to help River shoulder her bags. With a last backwards look, River resolutely turned and walked into the Impala. The cargo bay doors shut behind them, and with a faint rumble, Castiel kicked them loose from Serenity.

“Welcome home, River,” Sam said softly. River stood on her tiptoes and kissed him as the Impala carried them away.

---

Kaylee and Simon stood at the cargo bay doors as the others drifted away, imagining they could hear the faint sounds of the Impala’s engines as the other ship sped into the distance.

“Hey,” Simon said after a long moment. “River wanted me to give this to you.” He pressed a letter into Kaylee’s hands, one that River had slipped into his pocket while they were saying goodbye. The delicate rice paper crackled invitingly, and Kaylee unfolded it carefully, reading the elegantly inked lines with growing astonishment.

Kaylee,

Don’t let my brother mope too much. He’s been entirely too morose since my escape, and he’s forgotten how to have fun. Reintroduce him, and don’t let him dwell. He gave more for me in two years than some of us get in a lifetime. But he doesn’t know how to stop. That’s part of why I left, what I couldn’t say to him. He deserves to be Simon again, not River’s brother, and you deserve Simon too.

I’m going to be fine. Nothing in the verse can stop me.

~River

“Kaylee?” Simon asked, when the silence had gone on for too long. “What did it say?”

“Oh, you know. A River-ism,” Kaylee said lightly and began to pull Simon back towards her quarters.

Simon smiled as Kaylee and he ran lightly through the ship.

“I know exactly what you mean.”

Notes:

There is art for this fic, as created by the talented casper_san of LiveJournal. Click the link! -------> Artwork

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