Everything's changed, and no one has said anything. Everyone goes about their jobs like there aren't three people missing, two of them forever, the other just….absent. We take jobs, shoot people, earn money, and no one has said anything. We eat, we talk, and sometimes we laugh but no one has mentioned that Book and Wash are dead and aren't coming back and that Zoe hasn't smiled since. Simon and Kaylee broke it off after a couple of weeks, not cause they didn't like each other or anything but…after so many months of sexual tension their relationship became more physical and they both agreed to remain friends with occasional benefits. Inara and Mal on the other hand seem to have finally slipped into the 'official' category of their relationship, Inara still works but she has cut down immensely on the clients she sees, Mal agreed, not because he liked it but because Inara made a point that her Companion connections could come useful on the job.

All this has happened and yet no one has the nerve to go up to Zoe and tell her to wake up, no one well tell her that it doesn't matter how much she kills herself on the inside, no matter how unhappy she becomes Wash isn't coming back and she might as will move one. No one will tell her because they can't, they want Wash back just as much as Zoe.

Mal has started to teach River to fly the ship. When I found out I was on edge all month cause I was sure that the next time we went Atmo would be the last time, and each time we landed I expected it to be in a ball of burning wreckage. But she's actually pretty good at it, especially now that she isn't as crazy a she was before. That isn't to say she isn't crazy, it's just a lot more focused now. I thought Zoe might take offense seeing Wash replaced so soon, but she was glad. I think seeing that empty chair hurt her more than she was willing to admit, just another reminder that this ship is emptier than it's ever been.

Now, right now, everyone's asleep. We just finished a job that involved transporting antiques called Bobble Heads, I don't get them but they're funny to look at, especially after a long swig from the hooch I've been making using old fruit and some alcohol I stole from Simon's Infirmary. Everyone is asleep, but I'm up. I guess everyone else is asleep and I'm awake sitting here in the cargo bay listening to…well nothing. The only sounds are those of the ship breathing and after being on the ship for so long I can barely even hear it anymore.

The truth is every time I close my eyes I see them, the snarling mutilated faces of the reavers. They scratch and bite and rent everything they touch apart…and I'm powerless against them. I punch and kick and use every weapon in my arsenal I have and still each time I lift my arm the weapon is gone and whenever I throw a punch all momentum disappears. It was easy before. To shoot them meant riding the' Verse of another monster, but now when I think of them, of the ones I've killed, my stomach and mind revolt, I feel like doubling over and puking all the gorram things in my stomach. Each exploit becomes a murder and each mindless reaver just another person, like Kaylee or Inara or my mother….

I've been dreaming of her, my mother…like one of them. She yells and snarls and bares her teeth but I look at her eyes and it's her and she's begging me to do something, to stop it, to stop her, to save her and I lift my hand with the gun and I aim but I can't shoot, I can't do it, I'm not strong enough, and I close my eyes and lift my gun and my chest feels tight, I can't breathe, all I can do is hear her yell, terrible things, and I shut my eyes and I lift my arm, through the tightness in my chest, past the tears in my eyes, the roar in my ears and shoot…and she goes down. I'm left standing there above her body, no sounds, no sight, just the black and all I want to do is die.

So I sit here while everyone is asleep because no one will say anything, not to me, to Zoe. But it has to be obvious, someone has to notice, because if nobody does…Zoe sleeps without a problem, I guess sleep is better than to be awake and aware of his presence, or absence of. But, each time I close my eyes I see the moldering corpse of my mother lying there with her empty begging eyes. It haunts me. But it's stupid, I know my mom is alive, I just got a letter from her saying she got my money. But every time I close my eyes I'm haunted by the image of the most innocent person in the 'Verse turned into one of those things because of a disease, a mistake, and I wonder if any of the reavers I've killed had once been like my mother, someone's mother, and I killed them, we've all killed them and now I don't know if we're murderer's or something else like angels of death…But it's not like we go out and try to find them, it's not like we want to kill them but the possibility is always there and I can't sleep thinking of the possibility, of the chance that next time I'll see a reaver, it'll be my mother…and no one will say anything.