Firefly isn't mine, I just like to play in the Verse.

Simon sighed and rubbed his eyes, even as an intern on Osiris working twenty hours a day he couldn't remember ever being this tired. He glanced across the infirmary at the girl sleeping on the table. He was surprised by how quickly she was recovering, he knew that much of that had to do with his skill as a surgeon, but thought that most of it came from the fact that the little mechanic was unbelievably tough. She had never given up once. Her body had kept fighting even while she lay at his feet bleeding to death and he had used her life as a bargaining chip to get the captain to run from the Alliance cruiser. Kaylee sighed in her sleep and turned so that he could only see the back of her head, Simon was surprised to find that he was disappointed when he couldn't look at her any longer.

With Kaylee no longer distracting him Simon turned and looked for River, she was still sitting where he had left her, huddled under the counter in the darkest corner of the infirmary.

It was still shocking to see his sister, after three years of searching for her suddenly here she was in front of him. She had grown up so much in the time that they had been apart, but she still looked like the mei-mei he remembered. He was just concerned because she was acting nothing like the sister he remembered.

Simon knew it had only been two days since she had come out of cryo, but he was frustrated with his inability to figure out what was wrong with his sister. He had expected her to suffer from some sort of posttraumatic stress from her time at the Academy and his informants had warned him of some of the things that could possibly have been done to her, but he hadn't been anywhere near prepared for her state of mind.

She refused to look at or speak to anyone. She muttered almost continually to herself, but quiet enough that Simon couldn't hear most of what she was saying and what he could make out made no sense to him. He also couldn't get her to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time even with a sedative.

"River, how are you mei-mei? Do you need anything?" He asked trying to get a response but not really expecting one.

River continued to mutter to herself and stare off at nothing. After looking at her for a few more minutes he realized that she was still wearing the same clothes Inarra had given her two days before. Her hair was also dirty and hung listlessly around her face.

Knowing that Kaylee would be asleep for another two hours at least Simon helped River up and walked her down to the one communal shower on board Serenity. Simon hoped that River would go into the shower and clean up on her own, not wanting to violate her privacy anymore than he'd already had to, but as soon as River saw the shower room she began to cry and fight to get away from Simon's embrace.

"River, hey it's ok. It's just the shower. I thought maybe you'd want to get cleaned up a little." Simon said trying to reassure her.

"No I didn't fail the test! There is no logic to the situation! The parameters haven't been laid out and I can't open the puzzle box! Please no more needles, the drugs runs through her veins like mice. They chew through the wires and short out the system operations. Don't make me go in the gray room please." River cried and continued to fight against the hold Simon had on her.

"All right mei-mei, you don't have to go into the shower, don't worry." He said reassuringly. He tried to hug her then but she stiffened up and pulled away from his embrace. It occurred to Simon then that since their first night aboard Serenity River had not once voluntarily allowed him to touch her at all.

River began to calm down once they had turned away from the shower room and began to follow him again in the zombie like way she had been moving in since he'd found her.

It was then that they bumped into Inara coming out of her shuttle.

"Good morning Doctor, how are you today?" The companion asked politely.

"Umm fine, we're doing fine." Simon said distractedly.

"I heard yelling a few moments ago, is everything all right?" Inara questioned.

"Just trying to get River to take a shower, but the shower room seems to upset her, so I guess we'll figure out something else." Simon answered.

"That shower room is small, grimy, and only leaks out a trickle of lukewarm water it's enough to make anyone upset, most of the crew simply take sponge baths. Why don't you let me take River to my shuttle and I can see what I can do to help her get cleaned up." The companion offered.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea, she hasn't seemed to be stable I don't know how she could react at any moment." Simon answered unsure of what to do.

"I think we'll be fine, Simon. You look like you're about to fall over. Why don't you go take a break and I'll get River cleaned up and changed into some new clothes while you're resting." Inara insisted while practically pushing Simon towards his bunk.

"Ok well just wake me if anything happens." Simon called over his shoulder and watched to see Inara take River's hand and lead his sister towards her shuttle.

Once in Inara's shuttle she had River sit down on the silk covered couch and she began to remove the dirty clothing from the girl. River did everything automatically she didn't fight Inara's actions at all but also didn't voluntarily help. Once she had River dressed in only a silk robe Inara lay River down with her head hanging off the couch and began to wash the young girl's hair. River stared blankly up at the ceiling until Inara was done and helped her to sit up.

"She doesn't understand this mission." River suddenly said.

"What sweetie? I'm not sure I understand." Inara asked feeling hopeful that maybe she could keep the girl talking.

"There have been no parameters set. The compass has no needle and north is drifting. The team leader must set the terms of engagement before compliance can be reached. Are you the team leader?" River asked suddenly and looked at Inara intently.

"Umm the team leader? No I mean Mal is the captain I guess you would call him the team leader. What mission are you talking about? You don't have a mission to do right now honey, just try and get better." Inara explained.

River looked dejected suddenly and refused to talk or meet the companion's eyes again. After getting River cleaned up Inara dressed her in one of her older dresses, one that was appropriate for a young girl.

"There now doesn't that feel better?" Inara asked brightly. River simply continued to stare at her.

"Well I guess we should get you back to your brother now." Inara continued and stood up. River stood as well and moved to leave the room behind the companion.

"He's not her brother." River muttered but Inara didn't hear her.

River awoke later that night in the strange room. She was confused and fuzzy. She knew that it was a side effect from the large dose of tranquilizer the not-Simon had given her. Her internal clock told her that she had been asleep for less than an hour and she struggled to clear her head from the drugs.

Once she felt less fuzzy she climbed out of the bed and left the room quietly, the not-Simon didn't stir. She floated through the metal halls of her new environment, memorizing the number of steps she took subconsciously.

She wandered into the galley and her stomach rumbled at the smell of food coming from the cupboard she suppressed the feeling though, she knew that she couldn't eat anything during a test, the food was always drugged. Leaving the enticing smell of food behind she headed through a hallway and suddenly her head became crowded with the dreams of at least three sleeping people. She shook her head to try and clear the noise and moved quickly away from the crowding in her mind.

Up a flight of stairs and suddenly she saw stars. The whole sky was open before her, the calm black quieting the noise in her head better than anything had in a long time.

She started and pressed her self up against a wall when she suddenly noticed someone sitting in front of her. She admonished herself silently for not being aware of her surroundings.

Before engagement a good soldier always knows their terrain, they are always aware of any possible threat from any direction.

Commander Sykes' comment boomed into her head and she involuntarily made a noise of pain. The man in the chair turned around then and noticed her, she tried to shrink back into the darkness but it was too late and he saw her.

"Hey there darlin ain't you supposed to be sleepin or something?" Mal asked and rose from his chair. River looked terrified as he closed the distance between them, so he stopped walking towards her and instead studied the young girl. She was pale and shaking and far too thin.

"How longs it been since you ate a full meal girl?" He questioned.

"Physical needs must be ignored during a test. Marks off for weakness. Won't get a gold star and the Alpha will be angry." River replied. "Are you the team leader?" She asked hopefully.

"Well I'm the captain, this here is my ship Serenity." Mal answered. "I don't think we've actually been introduced. I'm Malcolm Reynolds, you can call me Mal or Captain, I kinda like Captain but most a the crew don't go for that." River stared at Mal but didn't show any signs of returning the greeting so he continued to talk.

"See now would be the part when you tell me your name." River's eyes went wide at this and suddenly she assumed a stance that Mal recognized as coming to attention.

"Student Echo 216." She said not meeting his eye.

"Your brother told me your name was River Tam." Mal said feeling unbelievably confused. He grabbed River's arm and led her off the bridge and to the galley and then placed her in a chair.

"Now you wanna tell me bout this Echo 16 thing or whatever it is." Mal said taking the seat across from her. River finally gave him a wary look before she spoke.

"Student Echo 216. She knows her rank and number and she won't allow her orders to be leaked. The parameters must be set before the mission can be completed." River said and Mal was suddenly taken back to his days as a sergeant.

"Is this talk from that school of yours? Ya know you ain't there no more right? Your brother got ya outta there. You don't have ta follow orders anymore." Mal said trying to make her understand.

"The Not-Simon is not Simon." River said simply.

"Uh-Ok I'm not sure what that means." Ya mean Simon ain't your brother?" River nodded her head but refused to look Mal in the eye. Mal felt his face get red with anger and his hands balled into fists.

"If that hùnzhàng was lyin to us bout who you two are I'm gonna throw him out an airlock." Mal said angrily.

"He pretends. He is ideal for the role of a Not-Simon, but she won't be tricked. They test her loyalty and brand her with a scarlet letter when she fails. She won't fail again. The Not-Simon is transparent. Simon never comes." River said and for the first time emotion entered her voice and she lost the tone of a soldier.

"Ok I'm not sure I'm getting this. He's not your brother and there have been other people pretendin to be your brother that ain't him either?" Mal asked. River nodded her head and tears filled her eyes.

"She doesn't understand this test. Is it escape and evade or intelligence gathering? How can she succeed without proper instruction?" River continued to fret and whimper for a while but Mal didn't understand any of it. He sat and let her continue to mumble as he tried to sort out what she was saying.

"Just like Rusty." River muttered to herself, but Mal immediately picked up on this statement.

"What was that darlin?" Mal asked. River shook her head and started to cry harder.

"Broke me just like they broke Rusty. Trick you like three-card Monty but the queen always disappears and then there is drugs, and needles, and pain. Then his father saved him, he followed him, told him where to find his squad. He wasn't his father, he was confused, gave away his location. I won't break again. I won't look for the queen because I know the trick."

"How in the gorram hell do you know about Rusty?" Mal asked suspiciously.

River just shook her head and rocked back and forth while she cried.

Mal was flooded with memories of Rusty suddenly, he hadn't been in Mal's squad but he had known him for awhile when they were both stationed on Poseidon for six months.

The Alliance had captured Rusty, he had been gone for five weeks and came wandering back into camp one day.

Mal remembered his broken appearance, the marks from obvious beatings and torture, but the scariest thing was the look in Rusty's eyes. He had been almost completely incoherent and muttered continually about his father rescuing him. It was only an hour later that the Alliance had found their position and attacked.

Besides Serenity Valley it was the worst slaughter Mal had seen in the war. It baffled Mal how this girl could possibly know about Rusty, but then it occurred to him that she had been in an Alliance academy. For all he knew they were using Rusty's story as a case study on torture and breaking an enemy.

"So you telling me that they used to trick you like they tricked Rusty?" Mal asked. He didn't think River would answer him but suddenly she was spilling out a mess of things he thought she'd been holding in for a long time.

"Let Simon come for a visit. Used to cry all the time and wanted Simon so they said he could come. The blue hands gave her drugs, made her fuzzy and Simon was there. Said he came to take her home, no more tests, no more fuzzy drugs. He was a Not-Simon but she played the fool and gave him her dollar, but there was no Queen. She told too much, had to be punished, made an example of, put in the Gray Room." River said growing louder and more hysterical by the second.

"No food or sleep, not until she knows she isn't River. She's Student Echo 216, the mission is all that matters. The not-Simon's always come back, try to give her hope like a balloon at the fair, but it always pops and the fair disappears and she's not safe and they hurt her. But she won't break again." River sobbed.

"Hey you're not there anymore. That's the real Simon and he did rescue you. You're safe, we're way out from the Alliance ain't no one gonna send you back there ok? River I promise." Mal said trying to comfort her.

"She's not River!" The girl screamed. "Student Echo 216, I know my rank I know my place. There is no rescue, Simon never comes!" River's voice had grown into a shriek by now and she had jumped out of her chair and was pressed against a wall with her hands over her ears.

It was then that the crew and the doctor came running into the galley, drawn by River's yelling.

"What in the ruttin hell is that crazy yellin bout in the middle of the gorram night?" Jayne yelled.

"River its ok mei-mei, I'm here." Simon said in a soothing voice, but this only made River scream louder.

"Doc why don't you go get something outta your bag to quiet her. I know what's goin on." Mal said. Simon looked at him doubtfully but turned and left the room to retrieve his med-kit.

"Sir you know what's goin on?" Zoe questioned keeping one hand on her gun and both eyes focused on the screaming girl.

"You remember Rusty on Poseidon? What they did ta him?" Mal asked. Zoe thought for a second and then her eyes widened and she looked at River with sympathy.

"Poor kid, no wonder she's so confused." Zoe answered.

"Someone wanna tell me what the hell is goin on and who the hell is Rusty?" Jayne grumbled.

Simon reentered the room then with a needle full of medicine. Mal thought River's panic couldn't get any greater but she got even wilder at the sight of the needle and tried to run from the room. Jayne grabbed her quickly and held her until Simon could inject the sedative. She continued to fight Jayne for another minute and then her eyes rolled into her head and she slumped against him. Jayne carried her to the infirmary and then everyone took a seat on the couches outside.

"You said you know what's going on with my sister?" Simon questioned Mal.

"Well I ain't sayin I know everything the Alliance did to her, but I think I understand why she's so confused and scared. It's a tactic I've seen the Alliance use before. They'd take a soldier and break him. Torture, starvation, sleep deprivation anything they could use to make a person hopeless they'd do it. But then they'd do somethin worse. They give him hope back." Mal said.

"I don't understand." Simon said and Jayne looked every bit as confused.

"There was a kid Zoe and me knew by the name of Rusty. Had it done to him. The Alliance captured him, tortured him for five weeks. Then he came wandering back into camp babbling about how his Dad had come and busted him out. But it weren't his dad.

They doped him up with something, probably a hallucinogen and sent someone in pretendin to be his dad. The kid gave everything up, led the Alliance right back to our location. River said somethin about you being a not-Simon and said there were other not-Simon's who came to get her. She'd think she was rescued and would tell the person confidential information, then they'd punish her for talking. It's a brain washing technique been used for thousands a years." Mal finished and saw from the look on Simon's face that he understood what Mal was telling him.

"Wuh de ma! So she thinks this is a test? She doesn't believe it's me. No wonder she's been so scared." Simon looked like he was going to cry and Mal actually felt a tug of sympathy for the prissy little doctor he'd already decided to hate.

"What do I do? I mean how am I supposed to convince her that this is real?" Simon asked looking desperately at Mal and Zoe as if they would have some magical cure.

"I ain't sure what you should do Doc, I'm not a psychologist, but I'd say just try and take it slow. Maybe talk to her about things only the two of you could know. If she's as smart as you say she is hopefully she can put things together. But for now I say we all get to bed since she's quiet." Mal said.

Over the next two days Simon did all he could to help River understand that she was safe, but nothing would convince her that she wasn't in the middle of an Alliance test. She refused to call him Simon and was getting more agitated by his presence all the time.

Everyone on board with the exception of Jayne tried to help River understand that she was no longer in the hands of the Alliance but she was utterly convinced that this was all nothing but a test, one that she refused to fail. She began to become agitated whenever anyone called her River and would scream for hours about her rank as Student Echo 216.

"Doc you better shut that crazy girl up or I'm gonna do it!" Jayne said gruffly as they sat down to eat in the galley.

"Hey now there ain't no need to be threatening violence Jayne!" Mal replied. "But he's got a point there Doctor, can't you keep her quiet?"

"I'm sorry I can't give her anymore sedatives, I don't know why they aren't working. I've given her a dose that should knock someone twice her size out for hours." Simon explained.

River's screaming quit suddenly and unexpectedly, making the silence seem strange and out of place. Simon headed towards the infirmary to check on her and panicked when he saw that she wasn't there. He ran quickly to their bunk but found that she wasn't there either.

Zoe came up behind him suddenly making him jump. "Doc you may wanna go fetch your sister, she's up on the bridge." She explained.

Simon found River curled up on a chair on the bridge holding a plastic dinosaur in each hand.

Wash walked in behind Simon, he wasn't one to get upset over things, but having a crazy girl on his bridge was one thing to make him uncomfortable. Especially one who had her hands on his dinosaurs.

But for the first time in days River actually appeared calm, she was simply sitting and lovingly staring at the dinosaurs.

"Hey mei-mei you aren't supposed to be up here I think it would be better if we went back to our bunk." Simon said very quietly not wanting to set her off again.

River didn't respond to him, but started to line up the dinosaurs on the console in rows. It suddenly dawned on Simon what she was doing as a memory from childhood came back to him. He went slowly to his sister and knelt beside her and picked up a dinosaur.

"Are the Independents attacking with dinosaurs again?" He asked. River froze suddenly and then her hands began to shake and she dropped the dinosaurs and grabbed Simon by both shoulders.

"Simon… Is it… Am I really here? Am I River?" She asked in a shaky voice and began to cry.

Simon grabbed his sister in a hug, "You're here River I promise. It's really me, this isn't a trick. I found you, you're safe now."

River cried heavily into his shoulder, but then stopped and pulled away from her brother. She smiled widely and for the first time since he'd found her he saw his mei-mei looking back at him. She turned and picked the dinosaurs back up. She looked at her brother and handed him one of the plastic toys.

"Simon we may have to resort to cannibalism."

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A/N- I wrote this quite awhile ago and then forgot about it. I just found it on my computer and thought I'd post it. I've never done a pre-BDM so I hope this one works. Thanks for reading and extra big thanks for those who review.