River woke up to be face to face with Jayne, but he was drooling on his pillow, and she had to struggle not to laugh at him. At least he didn’t mind when she laughed at him. Then she shuddered- she could feel something was wrong, that something was off, but whatever the problem was, River was sure it was human to a reasonable degree, and it probably wasn’t very nice. She shivered and bent to wake Jayne, and even though he wouldn’t like it, she knew she had to. Otherwise that someone else might wake him up, and that wouldn’t be good. “Guh? River, whaddya want?” he moaned. “Someone else is on this ship,” she told him, slipping off the bed and rising to her feet. “We’re going to find out who.” “What’s this ‘we’ stuff?” growled Jayne, burying himself deeper beneath the pillow. “Jayne…I won’t beg, I’ll just twist your arm, and then your leg, and then-,” River threatened, until Jayne held up a hand to stop her. “I get it. You know, ‘twist your arm’ isn’t really meanin’ for you to be twisting my arm,” Jayne told her, heaving himself into a sitting position. “I know it’s not meant to be taken literally, I know it’s a metaphorical expression,” River rolled her eyes. “You know what I find hard to believe?” Jayne asked her as he laced his boots. “That I still like you so gorramn much.” River smiled, but then jerked her head to glare at the ceiling. “I can’t really feel her…..She’s like me……She is me,” River murmured, and then left, slipping away. Jayne was creeping down the hallway, cradling Vera protectively. A slender figure swooped down out of nowhere and settled beside him; a quick glance at her face reassured him. “River….Did you see anything?” All of the sudden, another River came hurtling out of the darkness and swung at….River? She ducked and caught the other’s wrist, flipping her over, but she landed on her feet. Now one was sending a flying kick, but the other caught her ankle. Jayne just stood there with a stupid expression on his face. Now they were circling each other warily, ducking punches and receiving only glancing blows. “She is me…..” Now one was trying knock the legs out from the other, and then suddenly a loud voice was yelling. “Who is gorramn who here?!” Mal yelled, waving around a gun. The two girls froze, and Mal took that moment to club one in the head and turn the gun on the other. “Tell me something only River would know.” “When Jayne and I make love, we-,” began River. “Ugh, no! You’re the real River, just spare me,” moaned Mal. Then, remembering the situation at hand, he glanced down at the impostor’s unmoving body. “Toss her in a room and lock the door. Tightly. Then we have a crew meeting.”

Now they were all gathered at the kitchen table; four faces still bleary from the depths of sleep. Only River, Jayne, and Mal seemed alert, but it was only a matter of time before the situation was revealed and everyone got worked up. “Alright, we’re here now, and…well,” Mal began, the last dregs of sleep still not fully gone. “A clone of me is currently locked in a spare room. I don’t why she is here,” River interrupted, looking almost apologetically at Mal. “She doesn’t work for the Alliance….I may be able to get clearer thoughts when she wakes up, before her mind starts to function.” She was greeted by a startled silence, and then Inara spoke up. “Is she your age?” asked Inara. “Yes. They took my DNA before I was even born, before I was even me…..She isn’t a reader, I know that. That was why she had to attack in the dark, so she could trick you by sight,” River explained, glancing at Inara. “What’re we goin’ to do?” Zoe asked, leaning back so that her chair was on the back two legs, like a schoolboy. Zoe had been making progress since losing Wash, but there was still that haunted look in her eyes. Now she had reached into her pocket and pulled out a tiny plastic dinosaur, one of Wash’s favorites. River felt a wave of sadness from her, pulling both of them down like a black hole. Would there ever be light? “Well, at this moment we don’t really have a plan,” Mal said. “Give it a while.” “So we have my sister’s clone locked in a room, no idea why she’s here or what to do with her?” Simon asked groggily. “That would be the measure of things,” Mal replied. “Just makin’ sure,” Simon replied, putting his head back on his arms, and then jerking awake. “How did they clone her? Was there a surrogate, or did they use their new “Heart in a Jar” technique?” River blatantly ignored his flood of questions, because, while secretly glad he was alert now, it didn’t really matter how this clone was made. “It doesn’t matter who you are born, but rather the course you take in life. Plotting your course among the stars…,” River said all of the sudden. “Where is he, where is he? He didn’t get freed, he couldn’t go into the stars, and they took him. They revived him from what no one could have been revived from. He couldn’t follow the preacher man into the stars.” “Who, River? Who couldn’t follow the Sheppard?” asked Zoe, shoving the plastic dinosaur back into her pocket and staring at River with a knowing, wide-eyed expression. River’s answer was very simple, as if she expected them to have already known. As if she was surprised they hadn’t known. “Wash.”