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Nocturnal	By : dragonfall Category: 1 through F > Firefly Views: 9315 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Firefly, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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He was going to scream.

No, check that. He was going to vomit, then scream, then throw himself out of the airlock.

Simon pulled back another piece of loose grating, revealing another empty cubby hole. He'd heard Mal boast of how many places Serenity had to hide things, but now he had a new appreciation of it. The ship was sixty-three meters long, sixty-three meters he'd traversed again and again. Four hours of searching and his sister was still nowhere to be found. Not by him, at any rate. He'd asked the rest of the crew to keep an eye out for her if she appeared, but no one had so much as caught a hint of her singing.

As children, he'd always been the one to find her. River had a habit of going to ground whenever she was in trouble, an often enough event in their childhood. Too much intelligence in too small a body assured that she found herself on the wrong side of a tutor or instructor. Couple that with her imagination and a tendency to play pranks and it was a recipe for disaster almost from the moment she learned to walk. At first their parents set the servants to the task of finding their wayward daughter. It wasn't until she was five and one stint left her hidden for more than twelve hours that they'd finally recruited Simon to the cause.

He'd found her in less than ten minutes.

After that, he was the one sent to find her, or when she refused to be taken back, to act as intermediary between her and their parents. He'd learned more about diplomacy and tact during those sessions than he had years later during formal schooling. A diplomacy and tact that were now woefully absent.

"River?" He felt like a boob, talking out loud to no one, but when all else failed, the ridiculous was left. "River? It's Simon. I want to talk to you."

Silence.

"River? I don't know what's wrong, but we can talk about it." He tried to keep the question out of his voice. Could they talk about it? If she was hiding because of what he feared, then no amount of talking would be able to mend this. "You're not in trouble, mei mei," he tried to make his voice as reassuring as possible. "No needles, no yelling."

"I take it River's still missing?"

Simon spun around. Book was watching him from the stairwell with a look of long-suffering patience. "I don't know where she is, or why she's hiding." Lies, he thought to himself. He had too many possible reasons for her to hide from him at the moment.

Then again, she could be hiding because her pillows told her to.

The Shepard came into the cargo hold. "I don't suppose you've counted the suits, have you?" He nodded towards the storage closet.

The doctor paled. "Fortunately, yes." His sister hadn't relied on Mal's trick for remaining hidden, much to his relief.

Book watched as Simon ran his hands through his hair, locking his fingers around his neck. A bad sign, as far as the older Tam's body language went. Simon Tam wouldn't resort to hair pulling or tears, but he was close enough at the moment. Nothing set the boy off like his sister. "I'm sure she's fine," he tried to calm the young man. "She might think this is hide-and-seek."

Simon seemed to accept his explanation, but Book knew better. The boy may not want to admit it, but his sister was a Reader. She would have known he wasn't playing, that he was worried, and it troubled him that she would keep out of sight knowing that. River might have been crazy, but she wasn't cruel.

"There's an old trick my mother used when she misplaced something," Book guided Simon out of the hold and towards the passenger dorms. "She'd say the minute she stopped looking for something was the minute she tripped over it. Why don't you go and relax." He would have suggested a nap, but the boy would have balked. "When she's ready to be found, she'll show up."

The doctor looked like he was about to protest, then shrugged in defeat. The boy really did need some shut eye. "If you see her-"

"I'll hold on to her. In the meantime, you should try and get some sleep." He smiled. "I may not have Medacad training, but I know what red eyes are symptoms of."

************************************************************
River watched Simon and the Shepard from her hiding place. Simon looked all around but never up or down, so hiding from him was easy. No one looked up; even when the sky rained blood and screamed they went on ignoring it like nothing was wrong.

They were looking for her. She knew because Simon never went to the little places if he wasn't. No spiders on Serenity but he remembered the Cavarian tarantula Winston Brogdon snuck into school, hid in his bed. Spiders liked dark, cramped corners so Simon didn't. She could hear the others, too. Zoe and Wash happy at the game while Malcolm (because he became Malcolm when he worried) wondered where he'd find her and Jayne didn't care so long as she didn't cut him again and Kaylee wondered if River knew Serenity better than she did and felt jealous.

It hurt, hiding from Simon. Made the empty place grow until she was white inside. Simon worried. Simon fretted. Saw her hurt, stuck, lost. But he fretted over the wrong things. Didn't want to see her with his eyes. Saw her with texts and treatments and scans that made no sense so they flowed into each other, little tributaries that never became River. He couldn't understand so she couldn't and it was wrong. Brothers and sister always heard each other, even when they were far away.

When Simon was gone Book looked up, eyes raking over the cargo hold and eventually her hiding place before moving on and River stilled. Book wasn't like the others. When the sky bled he listened, even if he didn't do anything but get out of the rain. He had masks and more masks that always spun so she couldn't tell who she was looking at. Sometimes he led sheep and others he led men and others he rode through battle with a flaming sword that made her eyes hurt. No, simple name, but Book wasn't simple.

He left too, going to make sure Simon was sleep because a good general didn't let his soldiers sleep on their feet and River floated to the catwalk. Simon was in his room wondering what he could take, what he should. Settled on the little orange pills because he couldn't help his mei mei if he was crazy, too.

River listened to Simon until he became blurry, muttering in, out, around, down and she giggled as she slid into a crawlspace. Serenity was exactly 62.78 meters long, with 238.22 meters of crawl spaces, ventilation shafts and emergency access corridors. Ship within a ship but she knew the map.

***********************************************************************

They were just entering Blue Bell's atmosphere when Mal made his way back to his bunk. It was near dawn, planet-side, early enough that the port they entered still had most of its lights shut down. Blue Bell wasn't a Core planet, but it was close enough to make his shoulders itch. For once, their job wasn't anything that leaned towards the illegal side. Just a simple pick up and drop of fresh produce, all of it in cryo, to a settlement on Ganymede.

He stumbled to a corner of his room and kneed the commode open. The worst thing about late watch was having to make due with whatever was left in the coffee pot from earlier.

"The human bladder can contain up to 600 ml of urine."

"Daxiang baozhashi de laduzi!" Mal spun around. River was sitting between his desk and the wall, tucked into a corner he wouldn't have expected a dog to fit in, let alone a human girl. "What are you-" he looked down to where her eyes were focused, and spun back to face the toilet, tucking himself into his pants. "What're you doin' in my room?"

"Usually, the urge to evacuate occurs when bladder capacity reaches 150 to 200 ml," River answered in a conversational tone.

"That's... that's real fascinatin', River," Mal flipped the toilet up. "Don't answer my question, though."

Rivers fingers twitched against the wall. "Simon was looking for me."

He laughed. "So you thought it'd be a good idea hidin' in here?" There, he was buttoned, washed, and presentable.

"You think I've been following you. Inappropriate interest in your movements."

That had the sound of hurt behind it. "No need to sound so accusatory-"

"I like the way you smell."

Mal blinked. Then blinked again. No, she was still folded up between his bed and the wall and she hadn't grown an extra head. "You... you like what?"

River unfolded. "The way you smell. Like leather, gunpowder, Serenity."

The captain's back came in contact with the bulkhead. How in the hell had a 90 pound girl backed him into a wall? "Well... um..." he had to be dreaming.

One pale hand reached up, hovered over his shoulder before tracing down his chest. "The first stage of human arousal is a dilation of the pupils."

Mal slid around her. This was not a conversation he wanted to have with a seventeen year old girl, especially one looking at him like he was the biggest birthday present imaginable. "I think it'd be best if you went to see your brother, little one. He's wantin' to have a word with you."

She went stiff as a post. "You're not listening!" River stomped to the ladder. "Big bad wolf never listens. Only wants to blow the houses down and doesn't care what's inside them!"

Mal watched the girl go, and then headed out himself. It was time to get a woman's perspective on things.

***********************************************************************
Inara Serra was used to dealing with the emotional issues of others. A large portion of her training had been devoted to psychology, body language, human behavior. A Companion wasn't a whore to be used and abandoned. A Companion was exactly that; a possible friend, a confidant as well as a lover. She didn't just spread for her clients, as Mal liked to believe. Some had to be coaxed into revealing what they wanted. Some wanted nothing more than a person they could speak with candidly; someone who had nothing to do with their normal life.

Still, she wouldn't have thought to use that part of her training with Malcolm Reynolds.

Said man was currently pacing around her shuttle, wearing a hole in the expensive carpet. For the first time she could remember he was here, not to needle or cajole, but to ask for help. Though his problem was one she'd never thought to hear from him.

"Mal, I'm sure it isn't anything to worry about-"

He stopped his pacing. "Nothin' to worry about? I don't need some slip of a girl makin' calf-eyes at me, followin' me around all hours of the day."

"She more than likely doesn't know another way to show her interest." Really, the man couldn't possibly be that thick, could he? "Simon said she was taken to the Academy at fourteen, basically imprisoned for over two years. She's missed a large portion of what most teenagers get to experience. You could very well be her first crush."

That should have calmed the man. Instead he turned an interesting shade of purple. "She's seventeen!"

Inara shook her head. "Don't you remember anything about being a kid, Mal? First crushes last about as long as a sundae on a summer afternoon. In all honesty, I'm not surprised that she's attracted to you."

The captain swore under his breath.

"You're a good man, Mal," Inara busied herself with dumping the undrunk tea back into the pot. "River can see that. You're also caring in your own gruff way. And there is always something to be said for the desire for an outlaw with a heart of gold."

It was the sudden quiet that made her look up. Mal had stopped pacing and was staring at her with an entirely too self-satisfied smile. "Then again," she added caustically. "The girl is half-crazed and traumatized."

The smile vanished.

"Hey-"

Inara grinned internally. "Maybe this isn't such a bad thing. River's showing a healthy sexual interest in you." She ignored the man's shudder. "It's a sign that she's healing, Mal. She's reaching out to someone other than her brother."

"It's a sign the girl don't have any of the sense God gave to her, that's what it is. Girl's already moonbrained as a tinker's kit. She don't need to add love sick to the mix."

"I'll admit her choice in a potential partner-"

"Ain't no potential in it!"

"-leaves something to be desired," Inara rode over him. "It could be worse, Mal. She could have her sights set on Jayne."

That made the captain groan and sink onto the couch, head in his hands. "Knew they were gonna be more trouble than they was worth," he muttered to the floor.

The Companion actually felt a stirring of pity for the man. Mal never did well when it came to matters of intimacy. This was clearly more than he could handle. "Put her down gently, but firmly," Inara suggested. "It won't make her stop immediately, but eventually she will come to the conclusion that you're not willing to be with her." That left the problem of the girl setting her sights on someone else. Jayne was the next probable target for the child's attentions.

No matter the outcome, she had a feeling the next few weeks aboard Serenity were going to be very interesting.

******************************************************************
Big bad wolf was off the scent now, River knew. Wouldn't ask questions, wouldn't follow. The wolf put things together, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Pieces clicked together in the Black, pieces that had to stay far apart, pieces he didn't know he carried until they started burning in his palms. So she confused him, set false trails and led him away from the scent.

She twirled through the galley. They could dance through the darkness as much as they wanted and the wolf wouldn't blow a single puff against them.

A/N
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Nocturnal