"Each Morning I'm..."

Written by DeSangro.

Author's Notes and Disclaimer: Okay, this is my first attempt at anything like a song-fic. Technically, though, this is a poem-fic. All quotations in italics are from the children's poem "I Am Cherry Alive", written by Delmore Schwartz. For some odd, unfathomable reason it reminded me of River, and it inspired this story. I do not own the poem, nor have I been given permission to use it here. I do not own any of the characters from Firefly. This story is set post- "Ariel", and pre- "Objects in Space", with one minor spoiler for "Ariel".

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"Each morning I am something new:

I am apple, I am plum, I am just as excited

As the boys who made the Hallowe'en bang"

River sat on her bed, in her small orange room. It had been a good day so far.

She had had a small breakfast; Simon had fed it to her. He had given her medicine, which had made her nervous. A while back, he had given her a shot that had made her fall asleep, and then she had woken up in a hospital room, and the Blue Hands had been searching for them.

Today, she had made Simon promise her that he would give her no more shots, and he had promised, with a smile upon his face.

She was alone now, but that was all right. Sometimes, she liked being alone; alone with her thoughts and feelings, alone to sort out the impressions that ran across the surface of her mind like bright colors, bright colors of thoughts that revealed things that no one would ever dare talk about, ever.

River smiled.

"I can be someone else whenever I think who,

And I want to be everything sometimes too,

And the peach has a pit and I know that too,

And I put it in along with everything

To make the grown-ups laugh whenever I sing:

And I sing: It is true; It is untrue"

She reached out, carefully, delicately, lest the Blue Hands swoop down and carry her away, like an eagle snatching up a