Looking down at her hands Darcie smoothed them again against her skirt, imagining the rough feel of the fabric under them. Oh, how she wanted to cry, feel tears welling up in her eyes and running softly down her cheeks. With a deep breath, she balled her fists up and forced herself to stop feeling sorry for herself. She wasn’t beat yet. However, her chest tightened and, against her will, a sob escaped her lips. She had nothing, no reason to continue torturing this crew, no reason to stay. The cold hard fact was that even if she did manage to direct the ship to Sihnon they would terminate her anyway. She was a machine beyond repair, a failed experiment, a waste of time and resources. Darcie felt herself slipping. Her feet began to dissolve, no, she had begun to fall through Serenity, not dissolve. Her projection was too strong to just vanish now. Darcie fell up to her knees in Serenity; she was drowning in a sea of metal. Sinking up to her chest, Darcie spun madly downwards, fluidly falling through engine parts, machinery, until she was half out of Serenity’s hull. She was so close to falling out into space forever, the last piece of her lost to the stars. “Finish your mission. Finish your mission otherwise you will be terminated.” Darcie heard, but not with her ears. Her lower body was sticking out of Serenity, she knew that just a little further and it would all be over. But as Darcie contemplated the emptiness of space, a fear reached up and grabbed her, tightening and squeezing her until she choked. “Listen to me, Darcie. The pain can get a lot worse, I can prolong it ad infinitum, I can keep this pathetic body of yours alive. I know you can hear me.” She coughed again, choking on nothing. She didn’t want to die, she didn’t want to suffer whilst she spun and fell, lost in the black. With effort, she elevated herself up through the ship again, mentally hooked on the members of the crew. They did not notice, of course, they did not know that Darcie was rapidly approaching.

***

Mal shifted from foot to foot, his eyes darting around the room. Kaylee and Book had shut both doors and now Jayne and Book were positioned at each, glancing out every so often. “It just ain’t right Mal, why’d she do sommat like that?” Jayne said, rubbing Vera tenderly. “Darcie ain’t been but a nice girl since we gone picked her up back at…back at…” He frowned. “Why ain’t that just…” “Odd?” Simon interjected. He was sitting next to River, whose eyes were half closed, she seemed wrapped up in a world beyond that of the one he inhabited, and, for the first time, he was alright with it. Inara clasped her hands together, her eyes scanning Mal’s face anxiously. “So, she attempted to turn Jayne against Mal,” Book began. “Which, I might add, took nothin’ but a couple of words” Mal interrupted, eying the mercenary before nodding to the Preacher to continue. “And then she made Kaylee see something that wasn’t there?” He said questioningly, Wash patted Kaylee on the shoulder as the mechanic looked up at the group. Her eyes were still red from all the crying and she felt a bit ashamed about the whole episode. “The fuel lines ain’t broke at all, in fact they’re as good as new. I can’t, I just don’t get it Cap’n! I looked ‘n there it was, as plain as day.” “It’s OK Kaylee we don’t think you’re going cuckoo, do we?” Wash said encouragingly, looking over at his wife. Zoë frowned back. “What? It seems to me that she wanted to get to Sihnon very badly, shouldn’t we all be talking about that?” “Puttin’ aside how she did it, Wash is right. We need to head in a direction far away from that planet, providin’ Serenity is all ship shape and space worthy?” Mal looked kindly over at Kaylee, whose disposition brightened somewhat, and she nodded. “What about Darcie? She’s still aboard the ship” “But she won’t be any trouble” Chairs fell back, Jayne and Book jumped to their feet as Mal and Zoe drew their weapons. Simon drew River away from her seat and retreated behind the rest of the crew with Kaylee. A wall of guns before her, Darcie stepped forward, away from the door. “They probably won’t hurt me so you might as well put them away.” “I’m thinkin’ that we won’t be doin’ that anytime soon” Darcie laughed softly. “Captain, I just walked through the door,” she said, motioning behind her. “Little lead bullets are more likely to put holes in Serenity than they are in me.” “What…no, why?” Simon began, words failing him. “How?” “This ship, this little snippet of serenity, it isn’t meant to last you know.” Darcie glided down the steps, her feet making no noise as she did so. “What you have here isn’t meant to stick in this kinda ‘Verse. Things are darker than this, so much darker. I live in darkness, surrounded by strangers, people who have wanted to hurt me all my life. And I’m only a child.” Mal raised his gun as Darcie moved closer, however, unperturbed she sat at the head of the table and cupped her hands together. “I was like her once.” She cocked her head towards River, whose attention still was elsewhere despite the fact that her gaze was fixed upon Darcie. “Brilliant, at least that’s what my Pop said. I was real good with people, children and adults alike. Saw stuff in them that they dared not tell others. Never would I change things though, although I knew that all I had to say was one or two things that meant nothin’ to nobody else but the world to them. She makes perfect sense too, you know. River, well, she just sees things that aren’t tangible. All your feelings, thoughts, emotions, dreams, they spill over into her world.” Darcie looked down at her hands again, examining them as if she were about to lose them. She wiggled her toes a couple of times before Book spoke up. “What exactly are you, Darcie? Why did you come aboard this ship?” “Because I need help and I wanted all of you to help me, I just weren’t sure how to ask for it.” Darcie said, gazing back up at the Captain. “I’ve been separated from my body too long, my mind is stuck out here. I just wanted to get back to Sihnon so that I can finally be one person again.” “You ain’t being very clear, now answer the Preacher’s question.” Mal lowered his gun slightly. “What in the tian xiao de are you?” “I’m an experiment. A River that could-have-been. I was sold to the Alliance when I was eleven, after my Momma and Pop got so scared of me they were too frightened to even talk to me. I was sent to a dark place full of monsters, real monsters. They took my body away from me and forced me outta my mind. My body is dyin’ back on Sihnon because all they’re interested in is what I can do with my brain.” Darcie wanted to cry some, trying to convey that she was sincere, but her speech came out as little more than a pathetic plea. “I can’t get back myself cos I’ve been out in the black so long. Please, Captain.” She said, looking from Mal to Zoë, then at each member of the crew. “Please, you don’t need to do much ‘cept take me back. Please?” *** Back on Sihnon Darcie’s body twitched slightly, then one black-haired man bent down and put his ear just above her mouth. She whispered something to him, before falling back into a vacant stupor. “Prepare the ships, she thinks they’re coming.” He crackled his knuckles slowly, his latex gloves squeaking as he did so. “She’s coming home.”