A/N: New Firefly fan here, but the relationship between the Tam siblings is so amazingly interconnected with vulnerabilities and strengths all tied up together in each other that I couldn't help trying my hand at this. Several episodes as well as the movie are referenced in this chapter specifically - probably every episode will be referenced by the end - and those were written by others. No copyright infringement is intended. Hope you enjoy and I'd love to hear what you think of it. Thanks!

Split. Splintered. Fractured. Her mind had been broken, shattered into a million pieces against the hard surface that came two by two with hands of blue, and now all that was left was scattered across the cold, hard, barren ground. Shards of glass lying there and reflecting back light that glittered and shimmered and deceptively illuminated, hiding everything it promised to reveal. Each piece of glass contained some bit of her, but it was all diffracted and diffused and diverted, torn apart so that nothing made sense and she didn't even know who she was—one minute, the sparkles that showed in one jagged piece, the next the shadows populating a splinter near the edge of the mess that was River.

It was hard, when there were hundreds of her, to keep hold of any individual thought, to grasp hold of one truth and hold onto it when always the light and shadows were moving and playing and sliding along the surfaces and cracks and gaps between all the sharp pieces of her.

Hard, yes, but it would have been worse than that—would have been impossible—if it weren't for Simon.

He provided cohesion, coherence, brief flashes of lucidity. He was real and solid and safe and he provided a shelter, a refuge, a presence that bent the light around his own form and chased away the shadows so that the glass reflected more than just the play of light and dark. He made the glass give up little hints of the her-that-had-been, and as long as he was there, a presence, a something reflected in that glass to remind her that she was River-his-sister—as long as he was there, she could stay in one piece of glass for indeterminate amounts of time. When he was there, she wasn't so fluid, wasn't shifting and changing and moving and losing and drifting.

Some pieces of the glass showed her images of Simon appearing from the terrible unknown in front of her, the shadow of darkness clothing him, death clutched in his hand. But that had, she thought later, been only an illusion—a disguise granted by scraps of cloth that uniformed him in gray blackness, the death he'd brought with him weakened in his hand so that it turned from eternal oblivion to a merciful slap that left her tormentors sprawled on the ground, nothing more than bundles of flesh and clothing. He had drawn a dagger out of her and christened her with blood on her temple and whispered a benediction that even now drew her out of the depths of nightmares that terrorized her and memories that weren't hers and voices that shrieked at her from the grave.

"It's Simon—it's your brother."

The pieces of glass that embodied her consciousness shifted and rearranged themselves as her eyes fluttered open. There was a scream echoing through the chasm that yawned within her, a whimper that stirred ripples across the collection of sharp and jagged reflections. The scream died out and the whimper faded, but harsh breaths annoyed her, sounded loud in her ears, and the sight that greeted her lost, wandering eyes was confusing.

"Shh, River, it's okay. It's me—Simon. I'm here, River."

The blue and white and silver of the Academy was gone. Someone had stripped it of its imperial, ruthless façade and revealed the warm, glowing, beating heart. But that had to be wrong, because no splinter of glass—whether shadowed in blackness or piercingly, blindingly lit—allowed her to believe that this softened warmth could ever exist under the soulless exterior that had lured her to its arms with brochures that dripped smiles and leaked promises and then betrayed her with pens that killed and voices that promised uniqueness and delivered pain and torment and everything else that made screams rip their way from her unwilling throat.

Another ripple, a shimmer across reflective surfaces, and she remembered ice and cold and snow burrowing its way into her flesh, a hurried whisper from Simon that promised her the snowflake would wrest her free of the halls and classrooms and teachers that had deceived her and tricked her by promising her she could dance. She thought she remembered Simon kneeling before her, gathering her into arms that were solid and warm and real—the first real thing she'd encountered since leaving home and family and sanity. And maybe there was a memory of other things, Simon flying—or falling?—to her rescue like some kind of avenging angel holding a mute gun, and a darkly lit silhouette striding in from the blazing sun that tore away the noose from her neck, and maybe a collection of souls so very different and varied floating in the Black, and…and…and she couldn't remember.

But Simon was here, she saw. Or thought she saw. Maybe he was only here in one reflection, and maybe the other hundreds of copied images would reveal that he wasn't really there at all. But no, he moved forward, so cautiously, so tentatively, so filled with concern and worry and love, and he touched her, and she thought she might shatter and break again, thought the glass might just all turn into dust that would enter her mouth with every breath of hope and tear her insides to shreds because it was Simon and he was here and he was holding her and…he had come for her. She had known he would, feared he wouldn't, dreamed he did.

When the weight and warmth of his palm on her shoulder and the wandering tips of his fingers on her cheek touched her, profiled her, separated her from the nothingness that was all around her, curtains fell away and brushed the scales from her eyes and she knew that she was the one who had screamed, that the nightmares were the alarm that had pulled Simon from his bed, that the glowing, beating life around her was the innards of the Firefly currently sheltering them beneath its exoskeleton.

"Simon?" she whispered, and a sob forced its way past her lungs and into open air at the sound of her own voice, the first time she'd heard it in an unspecified amount of days/weeks/months/years.

"It's okay, River. Shh. I'm here."

"The glare," she told him, horrified that she hadn't known he was there, that she had missed his presence, that she had doubted him. "I couldn't see you past the glare."

"Shh. There's no glare now," he told her, and the matter-of-fact tone in his voice scattered a hundred shadows from the glass so that in an instant, she was wealthy beyond measure with memories of years long past, of afternoons spent doing homework and fighting off Independents, of evenings playing hide-and-seek under the dinner table and cajoling a smile from her too-serious, responsible brother. She gasped and spluttered and tried not to drown beneath the onslaught of memories, so rich and full of meaning and emotion and substance that she had to grab painful hold of Simon's wrist to keep herself in the now.

"More nightmares?" he asked, but he already knew. It was apparent in the way he settled himself on the edge of her bed and cradled her in the crook of his arm and studied her own face with his intent blue eyes—not the blue of harsh lights and searing tests; a warmer blue, shaded and nuanced and substantial—and in the soft edges that dipped his voice in delicious safety.

"I remember," she informed him solemnly. With recollection had come understanding—the understanding that these memories would soon fade and leave her once more darting from splinter to glass splinter, that time would once more slip through her stiff fingers, that she might forget again that Simon had read her letters and believed her and followed her through the Black and rescued her.

"You remember? Do you…do you want to talk about them?" Simon was cautious as he asked the question, and she—River, that was her name, and right now, she could remember Simon teasing her about always flowing through life so quickly that she slipped through his fingers just like water—she rolled her eyes at the lightning-fast realization that he thought she referred to the nightmares. Simon was always so single-minded, which had been irritating when she'd wanted only to distract him from the studies on which he used to focus so intently.

"Us," she replied. "I remember us."

The nightmares…those she never forgot. They were with her all the time, constantly, ceaselessly, chasing her back into the splintered and fractured mindset that kept her shattered and broken. But him…he was from the past, from the before, and that was so much harder to hold onto.

Simon's face softened, his arm relaxing around her, and River felt a rush of affection so strong and all-encompassing that it actually pained her. She wasn't sure whether the emotion was originally hers or her brother's, but it bounced back and forth between them, growing and strengthening with each pass so that there was nothing else in the 'verse that mattered next to it.

"I remember us, too," he said softly, quietly. The golden room around them was a cocoon, then, a chrysalis that wrapped the two of them in its paper-thin shell and spun life and growth around them while all of the 'verse held its breath in anticipation, waiting to see what would emerge. "River, I…I came for you as quickly as I could. It…it took me so long. I'm sorry."

Lucidity granted her speed, and she was already shaking her head vehemently. "No, no, no. You came for me. You're here. Time is subjective—this…this is what's important."

His smile was so small, yet it birthed something within River's heart, something tiny and heavy and bruised. She thought she had known the name of such a pervasive feeling before, and she knew that if she thought on it long enough, it would return to her—she was smart, everyone said so, and soon enough, she would figure it out, surely. It made her want to reach out with trembling hands that somehow weren't clean enough or worthy enough for this task and touch that smile, feel it for herself, reassure the doubts within her that it was real. That he was real.

But there was no time because already the memories that had enveloped her in liquid, silken cohesion were starting to dim and dull and slither away. Soon they would be gone and it would only be her and the hundreds of other hers, each one just a glimmer, a facet, a tiny piece of a whole-that-was-no-longer-whole, nothing else left.

No Simon.

"Simon!" Panic nibbled at her voice like little bugs. She wanted to shoo them away, but somehow they had crawled their way inside her and now rested deep within her, nibbling at internal things. She was a bit relieved by this—after all, Simon was a doctor. He could fix anything that was broken inside her, could sew everything back together again, she knew it. He was a doctor, but not like the doctors that had stabbed her and punctured her with as many holes as there were stars and whispered words that stole will and momentum and morals from her. He was the kind of doctor that fixed and helped and repaired, and he would fix her just as he had fixed all the people he'd told her about during his internship.

"It's all right, River." His fingers brushed through her hair, swinging the tendrils like rain, and the encroaching darkness receded a bit before his touch and voice and the hope stirring within him at this sign of her comprehension and connection to the world outside herself.

She liked that he said her name so much, could feel the repetition sewing her back together—stitching the name to her—just like the needle and thread he had used on that girl with the hazel eyes that whispered of engines and smiles—a girl she hadn't known yet who had spoken to River so casually—who was now sleeping in the blue-white-silver place that was like the ones at the Academy and yet different because this blue-white-silver place was Simon's.

"I have something for you, River." Simon stood up, then, and River watched him. Something deep and dangerous opened up within her the instant he pulled away from her in order to rummage in a ravenous bag near the door. Something warm and caressing banished that same darkness when he turned back to her and reclaimed his place at her side. His warmth hunted down every particle of cold that clung to her and warred with them, a hundred tiny battles fought on her flesh, mimicking the battles between coherence and insanity constantly playing out in her head.

Simon's hands encompassed a bundle, and her eyes locked on it hungrily, greedily, curiously, wanting to devour it immediately. But Simon was speaking, and his soft voice, so carefully enunciating each specially chosen word, called out for her attention, the simmering, tamped-down excitement in his eyes compelling her hand to finally come out and brush, quickly and lightly, across his bruised cheekbone.

"I'm sorry that I missed your seventeenth birthday—it was…" He swallowed and glanced away before returning attention to her. "It was just a few weeks before…before Serenity. But I brought you a present."

Shock reeled within her. Seventeen? She was…she was only…fourteen? No, fifteen. Or maybe sixteen. But not…not seventeen. That would mean that…that years had passed while other hands rummaged in her head and nightmares were planted there so carefully, so carelessly, so damagingly. That would mean that…what? What did it mean?

Nothing. The passage of years was inconsequential, really, nothing at all next to the subdued hope and cautious optimism bringing something more than—something else besides—worry and fear and guilt and concern to Simon's voice and eyes and being.

So she tried to smile at him, tried to smile for him, as a reward for his unfailing goodness. She knew—thought she had known forever—that he was a good brother, the best brother, never resentful when she corrected his mistakes, always willing to set aside his work and help her strategize how to best utilize the dinosaurs they stole from the Browncoats, ever faithful to show up to her dance recitals and private tea parties.

Never disbelieving when she sent him her desperate code. Always willing to give up life and home and career to come save her. Ever faithful to leave his sleep and his dreams and his own new bed and find her to chase away nightmares with the strength of his existence and presence and endless, boundless determination.

"Here." Simon unwrapped the bundled fabric in his hands and revealed her present: a thin blanket worn to almost nothing, transparently thin, achingly soft, colors faded to invisibility. It was a solid, concrete gift that was almost entirely translucent, and so tiny, though it had once been much bigger, in size and importance.

"A sentimental memento of the past," River said as her hands ran over the tactile memory, as the nightmares receded before this proof that she—River—was real.

Simon's smile turned almost mischievous. "I knew you'd remember. I felt so bad for saying that and making you leave it behind. So I kept it safe for you, ready to send it to you if you ever asked for it."

She couldn't meet his eyes, couldn't look up, couldn't match his hope. Because he wanted her to be River-that-was, wanted his sister back, the one who had danced and laughed and teased and played and loved uninhibitedly. He wanted his River back, and he didn't—couldn't—understand that his-River was gone. She'd been systematically beaten and tortured and killed, every single facet of her brutally slaughtered until all that was left was broken-River.

He had come for her…but she hadn't waited for him. She'd gone and died and disappeared, and now all that was left were the pieces he was trying to fix, trying to sew back up without realizing that no matter how many times he stitched her name to the pieces of glass, it'd always just slip away, just break and shatter and leave her with even more pieces to cast glittering sparkles that blinded and deafened her.

Here he was, alone and lost and so starkly contrasted against the rough and tumble world they now inhabited, his clothing and bearing and speech as out of place in this Valley of misfits and outcasts and good-hearted outlaws as she was, Serenity only a concept, a word, a definition to him, a place he had left far behind in his past.

And he was here because of her.

Only…her didn't even exist anymore.

And his hopeful expression, his fond dedication, his overpowering, overwhelming love was too much for her.

Tears stung her eyes, made the shattered pieces float atop the swirling liquid, fell to further obscure the once-vivid colors. She brought up the blanket that had been his-River's blanket since infancy to her nose, wanting to smell the taste of home, but it was weakened and diluted by the smells of the ship that so reluctantly carried them. And she knew—she knew that Simon was just like this blanket.

A remnant of River's past carried into the future for sentimental reasons. All color and scent wrung from it, dragged out of it, slowly and torturously and lingeringly. Still meaning something and yet its importance relegated entirely to the past. A fond memento of her previous life brought to her tortured side because she couldn't bear to be alone.

"It's River's," she murmured, her nose still buried in the blanket, her fingers tracing the contours of Simon's face.

He smiled at her again. She wished he would quit doing that, wished he knew how painful it was, yet conversely, wished that he would be kept forever innocent of the darkness inside her. His own darkness had been a disguising uniform he'd torn off in order to fly her into the heavens to a waiting ship and the icy snowflake that carried her here, but her darkness was deeper than that, entrenched and entwined within her so that it couldn't be torn free without taking all that remained of her with it.

"It's yours, River," he confirmed.

"Yours too." She worked at the fabric with her hands, struggled to find the exact halfway point of the blanket without measuring tape. "The exchange of gifts—one of equal value in return for another."

"Shh." Simon tried to calm her, placed his hand over hers as if the mere sensation of flesh on flesh would be enough to tear her goal from her. She wished it was that simple, knew that it would have been for his-River, but it wasn't nearly enough for broken-River.

"For you," she insisted, and she tore the blanket in half.

"No, River!" Simon stared down at the ripped memento as if she had ripped him in half, but when he looked back up at her, she saw in his eyes only the desire to understand.

"Here, two halves of the same whole." She took his hand in hers, felt the beating of his blood through his veins, a comforting thrum she absently shifted to the back of her mind so that it could soothe her when the last of these lucid moments danced out of her reach. He let her straighten his fingers, curled them back up again when she placed one of the strips of family-worn fabric atop his palm, action and reaction. But was he the reaction, or was she? Who had started it? Who had come first? He had entered the 'verse first, but he seemed to have tied himself inextricably to her, as if he didn't want to be alone, as if he could only respond to her.

She didn't want to be alone either, but she was scared—utterly, wholly terrified—that one day he would be gone and she would be alone. So maybe it was better to prepare him now, to make sure he knew that he'd have to learn to get along without her.

Only…only from the way he cradled the blanket in his hand and smiled up at her, she didn't think he wanted to learn that lesson. And so she let him stay safe and sheltered in his innocence and caressed him with her eyes and hoped with all her being—all of his-River's being, not quite as dead as she had thought, and all of broken-River's being, not as alive as he would like—that he'd stay the same, stay her-Simon.

"You didn't have to do that," he whispered, the breath of his being shaped into words that touched her. "Just having you back is a gift. You're a gift, mei-mei."

"It's fitting," she explained as she straightened her portion of the memento in her lap. "We're two halves of the same whole too. Simon and River. Focus and whimsy. Purpose and freedom. Dignity and grace. Doctor and…and…"

Assassin.

Light and dark.

The memories she held, granted by Simon's presence, were being tarnished, sullied, dirtied by what was now flashing through her, by the harsh lights gleaming in the shattered glass, stained and tainted by blood. So she let them slip away, gave them to Simon for safekeeping because it was better to be a little confused now than to let all the goodness still left to her be ruined by the nightmares that possessed her. They tiptoed out of her reluctantly, lingering as long as possible, sad to leave her.

Simon didn't know that the remnants of his-River were leaving, thought that she was still his sister, still a half. So he smiled his amusement and said, "Two halves—Simon and River. We are, aren't we. I'll keep this safe for you, River."

"No." She reached out and took back the blanket in his hand. "This one is yours—I'll keep it safe for you. You take mine and—"

"I'll take care of it," he promised her, and the intensity shone from him so brilliantly, so beautifully, so breathtakingly. "I love you, mei-mei."

He watched her, waited, poised on a precipice, but she had forgotten the steps to this dance, had lost the beat of this song, had drifted too far from the trodden path, so she merely looked at him. And only belatedly, only as shadows began to fall over the pattern Simon cast across the shards-of-River did she realize that he was waiting for her to say she loved him too. Waiting for that shred of proof that his sister was still there for him.

But any proof she gave him of that would be misleading at best, completely fallacious at worst.

And the words wouldn't come.

Tears floated into reality again, and River gave over her blanket of well-being to him. And then, daringly, longingly, sorry for the flicker that had floated through him at her marked silence, she drew close to him, hesitant, her hands shaking, so afraid that just touching him would hurt her, would hurt him, and she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him. And the perfume she had looked for in the blanket—the scent of home that she hadn't found—it was there. Lathered over Simon's body, smoothed into his hair, infused in his clothing, drifting around him like a private atmosphere he carried everywhere with him, setting him apart from every other being in the 'verse.

He smelled like home.

He was her home.

She held onto him tightly, held onto the pattern of his heartbeat, held onto his name and his presence as the last of her slipped away and another piece of glass circled into prominence, revealing another, lesser facet of her.

When she started laughing, started reciting numbers that meant nothing until she moved onto another splinter and found the image of a jumbled computer screen from The Academy, Simon simply stopped hugging her, folded up her blanket, murmured soothing words to her, smoothed back her hair, and let her whisper and mutter until she fell asleep.

Later, when the shadows and the light met with just the right amount of contrast to let her remember where she was and what the strip of cloth under her pillow was, she looked at that blanket, the memento of Simon, and she thought on how best to keep it safe as she had promised.

Glimpses, dreamlike and staggered, reminded her that Simon kept his folded like a handkerchief, kept it safe in his vest pocket, kept it right next to his heart. It was safest there, where he kept his-River curled up and protected, safe from anything and everything, fixed in its eternal spot there. He'd never let anything take her away, never give her away, never forget her. His heart was secure and safe, a refuge that still thrummed and hummed and beat somewhere in her mind where she had placed his pulse.

But she couldn't keep his blanket near her heart. Hers was just an organ, suitable only for pumping blood, not for keeping love safe. Not for protecting Simon.

Later again, after he took her out to see the stars even though fear sang through his veins, she took the memento of him and she hid it deep in the bowels of Serenity. It was safest there, safer when it wasn't next to her, when it was protected by a crew and metal and a past. Safest when she forgot all about it and so kept the nightmares from finding it.