See the story of River Tam and her mother unfold across four different periods of the young prodigy's life. A story of love, longing and loss that explores a r...
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Enjoy, and do feel free to (constructively) critique/comment!
I’m happy to post it on Buffyboards, if you’d like, just say the word! I just put the link because I already had it put together and formatted on the other site. But I’m happy to put it together here, when I have the time. 🙂
I watched Firefly and Serenity for the first time a little over a year ago. As many other fellow Browncoats did, I fell in love. I’ve watched the series over and over again, picking it apart, enjoying every tiny corner of the ‘verse the short 14 episodes provided us with.
And from the very moment she popped screaming out of that box, River Tam has been my favorite.
Naturally, after the enormous showhole Firefly left me with (as I’m sure it left you), I eagerly began buying the comics and novelizations, in a desperate attempt to somehow be with those dear characters again, on our beloved Serenity. Plus, I was deeply excited to see what would happen with River after the events of Serenity.
I was vastly disappointed. The comics (post Serenity) are cute, but dry. The characters lack…well, character, and the stories lack charm. River is so far from what she is in the show, she’s stale, gloomy, and boring. She’s got all the assassin powers and look! She’s magically cured.
So I turned to the novels. The novels were much more satisfying, storywise, but I found—more often than not—River was shelved. No writer knew what to do with her, so they just made like Simon and put her to sleep. She’s skipping around the background, generally not given much page time.
I’m very much a believer in “if the thing you want to see doesn’t exist, It’s up to you to create it”. My head is constantly swirling with ideas for Serenity’s next adventures. Only a few of them I’ve been able to put to paper.
I’m excited to share with you the first (hopefully of a few) Firefly/Serenity short stories. The inspiration for this one in particular was an idea I had a while ago. I was watching “Safe” (yet again), and saw the scene where Simon pleads with his parents to look at River’s codes. I began to think about how we see the Tam’s father interact with both children, but we never see their mother interact with River at all. At first I imagined a relationship for them much like my relationship with my own mother. I began spinning a tale of a relationship, strained and despaired. After all, her mother seemed dismissive and uninvolved. A socialite with no inkling what could be going on in the dark reaches of the ‘verse.
But then I was watching some Q&As with Summer Glau (River’s actress). Whenever she talks about her parents, especially her mother, she gushes. Suddenly, I felt wrong writing this story about a child’s torment at her mother’s neglect. To take that beautiful image of maternal love and spit on it…it was selfish, and maybe a little cruel. In the end, I don’t want to write stories to make people wallow. I want to write stories to make people hope.
The story really came together when I saw this clip, in which Glau answers a question regarding the reason behind River’s smile of wonderment when surveying the stars in “Bushwhacked”.
After hearing her answer, I knew what the story was. It was a tale of beauty. Love, longing and loss. And it centers around this moment in the series. It centers around the stars. Even the title, Mater Siderum means “Mother of the Stars”. It was almost a little healing for me, to write the story of a mother and daughter that I wish I could relate to.
So, without any further ado, I hope you enjoy my take on Regan Tam and her daughter. And most importantly,
Keep Flying
-BuffyNverForgets
(PPART 1 to Follow)
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PART 1: 2505
River rubbed her eyes dreamily, as the light poured through the window and onto her face. Warm eyes stared down at her, surrounded by soft, brown cascading curls.
“Mama”?
She felt her mother’s hands lift her from the bed, and soon she was held at her hip. She laid her heavy head on her mother’s shoulder, and brushed her own curls from her eyes.
“Happy birthday, little Xingxing”.
“I’m 1825 days old now”.
Regan Tam laughed softly.
“Oh, are you now? Did you figure that out”?
River nodded, not lifting her head. Her gaze fell on the silky white pearls that hung around her mother’s neck, and she let her hand drift up to them and her fingers enjoyed the sensation of the smooth beads beneath them.
Regan carried her youngest into the dining room, where her husband and son were already waiting. The table was set, an extravagant breakfast prepared for the occasion. The little girl’s face lit up at the sight, and she clapped her hands with excitement.
Simon jumped from his chair as they entered. “Happy birthday, Mei-mei”!
As soon as she was set in her chair, River began reaching for all the fruit and pastry her arms could grasp, very much following her older brother’s lead.
Their father gestured for them to slow down, smiling, “Don’t fill up now. You won’t want to eat anything at the party”.
River looked up at him, her mouth already full. “Party”?
“Of course.” Her mother said, dishing up a much more reasonable serving for herself, “We’re celebrating a birthday in the Tam house. Of course there’ll be a party”.
And a party there was. The house was prepared all day, and soon enough so were the children. Simon was put in his formal coat and bowtie, and River was given a new dress. Red embroidered silk, little puff sleeves, a sash with colorful roses hand stitched into it, and a hair ribbon to match. River found the silk a little stuffy, but she was soon distracted by the many friends of her parents, entering the house one after another, all bearing bag, box and bundle alike, all tied nicely with a tag, her name written in the prettiest handwriting.
Simon’s friends Anders and Haoyo soon arrived, and the boys were off getting into who knows what. River waited for someone to come with a girl she could play with, but no one ever did. They would come in, give her a pat on the head and wish her a happy birthday before greeting her parents, depositing their festively wrapped offerings and socializing with the rest. All the Li’s daughters were too old for River. So were the Beaumonds. She sat there and sat there, but no one seemed to notice her after they joined the party.
A loneliness crept into her hopeful little heart, much like the one she felt whenever Simon had to spend all day doing lessons with his tutor and she was left alone to her own devices. She felt warm tears well up in her eyes, and she began to blink hard to dispel them, as she tried to remember how she consoled herself normally.
She wiped away the tear or two that had managed to roll down her cheek, and jumped up, her little slippers carrying her swiftly to the library door. She reached up to the familiar cold metal handle and pulled. She almost fell backwards as the door didn’t budge with her efforts. She tried again. It still didn’t move an inch. It must be locked. In desperation, she tried again…and again, and again, each yank more desperate than the last, each tug using more of her weight. She felt her face warm again, and the tears start falling down her cheeks. She covered her face, trying to wipe the tears away. No one could see her cry. That’s what Daddy had said. It’s okay to cry with Mommy or Daddy or Big Brother, but we don’t cry in front of other friends. Especially not at parties. But still, the tears came. They seemed to flow even harder each time she thought about how much she ought not to be crying.
Soon she heard her mother’s voice echo through the hall.
“River, xingxing? Where are you”?
As her mother swung around the corner and spotted the girl, River turned away from her, embarrassed, holding her hands over her face so that her mother might not see the red cheeks and sparkling tears.
“There you are. We were wondering where you got to”.
Regan saw immediately there was something wrong with her child, and knelt beside the girl as she gasped and sniffled, trying hopelessly to conceal her despair.
“Oh darling, what’s wrong”?
At the moment Regan’s hand fell on little River’s shoulder, the girl broke into sobs and clung to her mother, weeping out her nonsensical tale of woe into the woman’s shoulder.
“Why-Why don’t I have any friends at the party”?
Regan Tam put her arm around her daughter, and sighed. “I suppose you don’t, do you? I guess no one else had any little girls when you were born. Mrs. Hughe just had a little girl, but she’ll be too little for you for a while now”.
River’s sobs had been stifled, but tears still ran down her face as she clung to her mother’s neck, once again fingering the pearls resting there.
“What were you doing trying to get into the library”?
“I felt all alone…Like I feel when Simon can’t play…So I wanted to read”.
“Oh, I see”.
Regan considered a moment.
“Well, it was supposed to be a surprise, but I think now is as good a time as any to show you. Just act surprised when your father shows you, okay”?
Regan began fishing in her pocket, and River released her, staring at her in bewilderment, wiping the last of the tears from her eyes.
Her mother produced a key from her pocket, and unlocked the door. She gestured for River to try the door once more, and once again River tried the handle. This time, the door swung open as expected, and River gasped as she entered to find a new addition to the familiar room. A huge telescope sat under the window, its shining body black with gold detailing all over. .
Regan took the child's hand, and led her closer to the equipment.
“Now I know you’ve been reading about the stars quite a bit lately. You can’t really see them from the city. There’s too much light to block them out. But here, look right through here”.
River approached the looming object and put her eye to where her mother indicated, closing the other.
Suddenly, her vision was filled with hundreds of blinking lights, all different colors and sizes. She gasped with amazement.
“Are those-”?
“Those are the stars, River. With this telescope, you can see the stars”.
“Are they really that close”?
Regan laughed her gentle laugh.
“No, no little Xingxing. It only makes it seem like they’re close. I don’t think we’ll ever be that close to the stars”.
River felt so overwhelmed by the beauty and wonderment, she suddenly turned and sprung upon her mother, wrapping her in the biggest embrace her small arms could manage.
“Thank you, Mama! I love them. I love them so much”.
Just then, a thought suddenly occurred to her, and she drew back, addressing her mother with concern.
“Does this mean we have to go back to the party now”?
Her mother considered this for a moment, then shook her head softly, bringing River into her lap.
“No Xingxing. I think we should stay here a while, and look at the stars”.
(PART 2 to follow)
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PART 2: 2514
River tossed once again. No matter how she positioned herself, within minutes that sharp fluttering feeling settled in her stomach, and she just had to move. She rolled onto her side, and adjusted the covers. She didn’t dare close her eyes. She took in every corner of the room she had been so mindless as to take for granted.
She was excited to go off to the Academy, she was….But she was also incredibly nervous. There was a dark foreboding in her gut she tried desperately to push away. She had never been away from her family that long, and every thought of taking this leap of independence sent a pointed thrill through her whole body. Soon she once again found herself staring up at the worn out star charts she had hung above her bed. She lifted her hand in the air, and began tracing the constellation patterns with her fingers. This only lasted a minute, before she released the building anxiety with a moan and swung her feet off the bed. She sat there for a minute, pondering what to do. Suddenly a thought occurred to her and she rose, grabbing her sweater.
She walked the quiet halls of the Tam house, listening to every gentle creak of the floorboards and tick of the clocks. She passed Simon’s door. He never fully closed his door at night, always liking the faint light from the hall to shine in through the crack. But here it stood, closed. Her brother had been on edge lately, especially as the date of River’s departure got closer. There was a painful twang in her heart as she realized just how much she would miss him. She consoled herself as she walked on, “They said I could write to him, at least”.
She walked on until she came once again to the big wooden doors of the library. She pulled the handle and the door opened with a gentle creek.
River was surprised not to be alone in the library this late at night. Her mother sat up on the ledge where the large telescope sat, her face turned up towards the big window, her foot hanging down over the edge.
She turned as River approached, and her look quickly turned from surprise to warmth.
“River, dear, what are you doing up? You’ve got an early day tomorrow”.
River came closer until she was just under the ledge.
“Couldn’t sleep”.
“I couldn’t sleep’, dear, you’re missing your subject”.
“I know”.
Regan gestured for River to climb the ladder to join her, and she obliged.
“If I’m being honest, I couldn’t really sleep either. Your father went on and on about how proud he was, then he was talking about all the things we needed to worry about, then the financials…by the time he was done with that, he was out like a light”.
River peered up at her.
“‘Worried about’”?
Regan shook her head.
“Oh, it’s nothing. This is just your first time on your own…We wouldn’t be good parents if we didn’t worry a little.” She paused somberly, before trying to lighten her tone. “Plus, Simon’s just started at the hospital. Pretty soon your father and I will have this big house all to ourselves”! She had tried to smile through the assurance, but her voice broke right at the end, and betrayed her inner turmoil.
River grabbed her mother’s hands, and looked into her eyes, which were now shining with stifled tears.
“I’ll be okay, mama, I will. I’ll learn so much, and meet other kids like me—You were always worried I never made any friends—and I can come home for Christmas and holidays…and they said I could write. Plus Simon won’t be too far, he can see you all the time…Oh, mama, don’t cry”...
But Regan couldn’t stop herself, and she pulled her daughter close as the tears started to fall.
“Oh, I’m okay River. I am. I just-I’ve just been sitting up here thinking about….How I forgot to even tell you how much I’d miss you”.
“I’m going to miss you too, mama. So much”.
They stayed there for a while, River sitting next to Regan, her head on her mother’s shoulder. Regan dried her tears and apologized, to which River assured her no apology was necessary.
They both gazed out the window and the small cluster of faintly twinkling stars high above.
“You know, they said I would have a big window in my room. I bet I can see the stars much better there”.
“That’s wonderful, Xingxing”.
“What do you say, whenever I miss you, or you miss me, we both look out the window, up at the stars. I don’t think I’d feel so far away from you, if I’m looking at the same stars you are”.
“That’s a beautiful idea, River.” Regan put her arm around River “Okay, whenever we miss each other, we’ll look to the stars”.
They sat there for a while, before River fell asleep, her head still resting on her mother’s shoulder.
(PART 3 to follow)
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PART 3: 2515
The blinding, searing pain began again, and River squeezed her eyes shut as tight as she could, as if her achingly tensed muscles and hopeless prayer could make this pass any faster. She wasn’t sure if she was screaming. Everything was noise to her. The discussion of the doctors, the shriek of the machinery, even her own cries blended together to form a symphony of torment. She felt warm tears roll down her cheeks, and she instinctively lifted her hand to wipe them away, but her hand hit metal, and her brain vaguely registered its limited capacity for movement, every limb restrained.
She pressed her eyes shut tighter, until she saw little spots of color appear on the back of her eyelids. A familiar warmth filled her as she saw them, and she puzzled to think why. She felt her eyes roll back, and her muscles relax. She had passed out. Maybe someone was listening to her helpless pleas after all. The pain was still present, but dulled. She heard the annoyed murmurs of her captors and she was released from consciousness, but she couldn’t make out one word.
The bright spots of color stretched out before her eyes, and she suddenly remembered what she was seeing.
“Stars”...
She could see them fading in and out. Blue, yellow, green. Closer than she had ever seen them. How was she seeing them? She must be looking through the telescope. Yes, that’s where she was.
“I figured I’d find you here”.
River turned her head away from the telescope to see her mother waiting at the foot of the ladder for her.
River scrambled down the ladder and threw her arms around her mother.
“Mama…Mama, I missed you so much. I didn’t like it there at all, I want to come home. I want to be home with you”!
Regan stroked the trembling girl’s hair. River looked up to her mother’s face….where were her eyes? It was like the picture wasn’t completely in focus…She knew it was her mother, but something was quite right…not quite real. River pushed her dream a little further, and the sensation of her mother’s gentle presence felt just a touch more real.
Regan took her daughter by the hand, and led her through the library door. They walked down the path for a while, the sky full of more stars than River had ever seen.
“I’ve been writing to you…Have you gotten the letters”?
“Of course I have, Xingxing. I loved them”.
“But…there’s more to them. Didn’t you get it? Didn’t you see what I hid in them”?
“I don’t know what you mean, dear”.
“I wrote to you. Secrets. Little things they don’t want me to say. I need your help mama, I want to come home”.
“You’ll be home soon enough”.
“Mama”....
“You look so tired, Xingxing. Let’s get you back to bed”.
River saw ahead of her a familiar metal door, and her heart began to thud against her chest. Her legs trembled and she clung to her mother tighter than before. Regan continued to walk towards the door, but River pulled against her.
“No, mama. No, I don’t want to go back. Don’t make me go back! Please mama”!
Her mother didn’t look down. She kept moving, her ever fading face fixed on the door.
“No, no, you don’t understand. They hurt me, mama, don’t make me go back”.
“It’s okay, love. You’ll be home soon enough. I’ll see you here again”.
Regan pulled the metal door open, and stepped through it, pulling River in tow. The girl shrieked and cried as she passed through the doorframe, her terror growing with every breath until—
River’s eye shot open. She was lying on the cold concrete floor, curled on her side. They didn’t bother to leave her on the bed anymore. They couldn’t. They hadn’t replaced her mattress from when she cut it up last week. She shuddered at the cold, and slowly pushed herself up on one arm. Her head was throbbing, and when she lifted her hand to touch it, her hand brushed against her cheek, still wet with tears. Her hand fell on a rough cloth wound around her temples. She bit her lip to keep from yelping in pain as she began to unwind it. Soon, she had in her hands the cloth, stained with little spots of recently dried blood.
She discarded the cloth and ran her hands through her tangle of brown curls. She longed to dream again. But she didn’t dare close her eyes when she knew they were watching her. They come for her in dreams, and so she cannot allow herself to fall into them. She remembered something that one Shepherd would say when he came to her parent’s parties as a child.
“If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away”.
If the mattress causes her to dream, it has to go. Cut it, cut it up, throw it away. It’s the only way to keep them from her. No more dreams. They cannot come for her, dig around her head, make her bend. She’ll stay upright. Protect the spine, protect the skull.
Her swirling thoughts began to grow heavier and heavier until she felt she might scream. Her eyes were heavy, and she wanted to curl up and reach out across the stars to take her mother’s hand again.
But there was nothing to guarantee her it would be her mother’s hand she found, and not something else.
She shook the sleep from her head, and crawled over to the bed frame where the gutted mattress still lay. She lifted it to find the single creamy white pearl rolling across the metal frame.
Her mother had given her the old necklace River had loved so much as a child, and she had kept it in her pocket on her first day here. The rest of her things quickly disappeared, and River had anxiously clung to the necklace in secret for a long while before the orderly realized she had had it. They tried to grab it from her, but she refused to let go. They had yanked hard, and the delicate old string had snapped, sending pearls flying across the floor. She had sprung to collect them, but they had pushed her aside, holding her down to watch as they collected every shiny white bead.
Except for one. As soon as they had left her, she scrambled to the small desk in the corner. Behind one of the legs, sandwiched tightly between the desk and the wall sat one solitary pearl. She held it gently in her hands and began keeping it under her mattress to hide it from prying eyes.
She held it now, rolling it between her fingers. She examined how the cold white light bounced off the bead, and felt the cold surface chill her fingers.
“When I sleep, I can still feel you”.
She heard heavy booted footsteps approach her door, and she quickly stashed the pearl again. She still sat, leaning against the bed frame, her back from the door.
The door slid open, and a low voice called to her from the doorway.
“River, it’s time for your session with the Counselor”.
“You didn’t give me a window”.
The orderly paused for a moment. It was common for his charges to speak in an odd manner such as this, but it still took him a minute to figure out how to respond.
“You’ll be with him for an hour, as usual. That’s your window”.
“No. You said I’d have a window. A big window”.
She turned to him abruptly, and his breath caught a little at the sight of her. Her hair fell in a tangle of curls at her back, her eyes were dark and tired. Her face was pale, and her head was still adorned with a thin crown of tiny dried blood spots from her sessions with Dr. Mathias earlier.
When she spoke again, her voice was desperate and pointed.
“I want a window. I want to see the stars”.
(PART 4 to follow)
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PART 4: 2517
River woke with a start, gasping and crying out before she even realized she was awake. She panickedly tore at the needles and apparatus that pierced her forehead, only to find herself scratching at her own skin.
Nothing. There was nothing. She was safe.
So then why did it hurt so horribly?
She sat up, desperately drawing in air, trying hard to let her lungs fill up slowly and steadily as they should. Once her breaths were reliable, she let her head rest against the wall next to her.
Serenity hummed with life beneath her temples. To those viewing from without, she would look slow and silent, gliding smoothly through the black. But from within, she was always abuzz. Even when the crew slept soundly as they did now, all the pipes and wires running from stem to stern were constantly alive, constantly active. River wondered if this is what a mother felt like, to sit sleepily and feel something alive beneath your hand, just veiled from view.
Mother.
River’s eyes pressed shut as the knife twisted in her heart.
She didn’t dream of her mother anymore. Not since she had been safe on Serenity. She figured it was because of just that. She was safe. Her subconscious no longer needed to protect her fragile psyche. Simon did that. Even so, she wished desperately to walk under the stars again, feel the warmth of her mother’s hand…Hear the soft cadence of her voice.
The knife plunged deeper.
Weeks ago, when she and Simon had to hide from some alliance officers, they had dawned some clunky metal suits and clung to the side of Serenity. River remembered Simon looked quite sick. All he had thought was about what happened if they let go.
But then she had turned around, and seen…
Everything. Blue, yellow, red, green, white….blinking and fading. She knew they had been far, but they felt so very close to her, as if their burning warmth could melt the frigid terror of her heart and make her whole again.
“Stars”....
She had stared out at them, her face beaming in wonder.
Mother.
Maybe she was finally looking at the same stars her mother was. She remembered what her mother had said when she had first seen them.
“I don’t think we’ll ever be that close to the stars”.
“But I am, mama. They’re so close. They’re so beautiful”.
River rose from her bed. Her longing was powerful and urgent. She left her room and set about satisfying it.
She wouldn’t don one of those clunky spacesuits. They were so heavy, and she had never taken the time to learn how to secure them properly. And if she didn’t secure it properly….She’d figure that system out another day.
No, she didn’t need to be out in the black, clinging to Serenity. She knew of somewhere just as good.
The door to the flight deck slid open, and River stepped in. The room was quiet, save for the gentle hum of the machinery and the occasional beep from the console. She wandered closer to Serenity’s bow, letting her gaze wander over the many lights, screen, flips and switches on the console. The course was set for Jianyin, and they’d be there in a matter of days.
She sat down in the pilot’s chair, pulling her knees up to her chest and lifting her gaze to the enormous window.
There they were, just as she had left them. She felt the throbbing fade from her brow, her whole being breathing a sigh of relief. Unlike before, the stars now drifted ever closer as Serenity made its way among them. There was peaceful wonderment, no matter how many she passed and left behind, still millions more stretched out ahead. She breathed a sigh of grateful release.
“Sanctus Mater Siderum, miserere mei”.
“I hope you’re not trying to evoke anything on my flightdeck with that Latin”.
Captain Reynold's voice was gruff and tired as he stepped through the door and sidled up beside the chair, taking in the same sight she did.
“Trouble sleeping”?
She didn’t answer him, not even with a nod.
“I heard you tramping through the halls. It’s a mercy you didn’t wake the whole crew”.
He glanced down at her, scanning for any sort of indication that her mind was present with her at all.
Her eyes were deeply peaceful, almost somber, and filled with the stars she fixed them on.
Mal walked over to the co-pilot’s seat, and sat, gazing back out into the black.
River Tam was not a very talkative girl, and when she was, there generally wasn’t much sense to make of it. He was starting to get the feeling though, that what went on behind her distant eyes was more complex, beautiful and painful than he cared to imagine. The simplicity of what she said next caught him a little off guard.
“I miss my Mama”.
He turned his head to her, surprised at the sound of her voice, barely raised above a whisper.
“When I’m here, I can still feel her…She’s out in the stars…She’s waiting for me”.
Mal’s instinct was to brush this off. He didn’t like it when people got all poetical. But something inside him stopped him from grumbling at her, or setting her straight.
“Then…why don’t we just sit here a while. If it will do you some good”. He looked at her with a mock sternness “I’d rather not have to wake your brother, should you start throwin’ any fits”.
He considered for a moment before continuing.
“And—if you need to—I don’t think I mind you coming up here every once in a while. I don’t suppose Wash would either, provided you don’t get in the way or play with any buttons. And I know they might look fun, but you probably shouldn’t move his dinosaurs around. You know how he gets about—”
He glanced at her, and saw her lip trembling as she bit it. She looked down at her knees, and looked about to cry.
Mal stiffened. He didn’t like seeing people cry. Especially women. He never quite knew what to do or say. Most often, he just found an excuse to leave. He had seen River Tam cry on several occasions, but it was generally in the midst of one of her frenzies, when she was nowhere near lucid enough to realize what she was doing, let alone stop herself as she was now.
“Do you…Do you need me to leave”?
She shook her head.
Mal squirmed a little. He was quite frankly tired of trying to figure out how to tiptoe around the crazy of it all. Time to be straight with her.
“If you’re about to cry, I’d very much like to lea—”
She shook her head harder this time.
“I won’t. Daddy says I'm not allowed to cry in front of other people. Only Mommy, Daddy or Simon”.
Mal’s brow furrowed.
“That’s just like those rich alliance folk. Tell their kids not to cry or carry on. They’re all about saving face, I tell ya”.
He caught himself, realizing this wasn’t the thing to say to this particular girl.
“I’ll tell you what. You can go ahead and….and cry as you want with me. I…I don’t mind. I don’t know I’m much the consoling type, so don’t go expecting any hugs or cooing, but if it helps you go ahead. You’re livin’ on my boat now, so it don’t make much sense, you just crying to your brother all the time. Are you trying to drive him silly too”?
Tears began slowly rolling down her cheeks, and at first she tried to wipe them away as they fell.
Soon they were falling too fast, and she rocked forwards, her face in her hands. She wept silently for a long while.
Mal sat there, uncomfortable and stiff for several minutes before the blanket of tension faded, and a warmth and pity took hold.
Mal tried to resist the urge to speak, but the silence was powerful. He soon found his voice cut through it without even realizing what he was doing.
“I know it was mighty hard what you and your brother did, leaving them behind like that. But maybe in time…We here will come to be a sort of…good to you now, as they were then”.
He was suddenly startled by a quiet laughter, as River’s head rose once again, now bearing a bright, tired smile.
She stared out once again, her face red and wearily blissful.
“They’re so wonderful, aren’t they”?
This was the first time she had ever really made any sense to him at all.
“For all your big, crazy genius thoughts, there’s finally something we agree on”.
They sat there in silence for a long while after that, gazing at the stars.
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