This is very different for me, an Alternate Universe fic. Trying to suss out what would have happened if River had never gone to the Academy, never been experimented on, and had gone on about her business as usual. Or, at least, as usual as a near-Reader genius child prodigy can be.

Different Strokes

Chapter 1

The peaceful, curving, lines of her brushstrokes mirrored her mood. Slow, and methodically, she completed the final sweep across the canvas, and sighed contentedly. Tomorrow she would begin the detail work. These were just the undertones that would make up the base of the painting. The final work was still not fully visualized in her mind. She liked to let it wander when creating her artwork. Her guess as to how it would end up was as good as anybody’s.

River Tam. Artist. Mathematician. Dancer. Genius. Little sister.

She went over the list in her head, smiling. She had done enough for today. At least, that was what everyone always told her. ‘River, you’re going to wear yourself out’, ‘River don’t you ever sleep?’, ‘River, you’re up early today… or didn’t you go to bed?’. The last one was her favorite, even though she heard it often enough.

The truth was, she didn’t really feel the need for much sleep. A few hours, every other day, was enough for her. She knew it shouldn’t be healthy, but she was in perfect physical shape. She always had been. Between her dancing and the occasional martial arts training she did, she always had a toned, muscular, albeit petite, physicality.

Tonight, however, was a night for sleep. She lay against her pillow, and tried not to let her mind wander, because if she did, she knew that it would take her the rest of the night, and probably tomorrow, to reign in her fast-track thoughts. She’d once heard a very good description of how her mind worked, told to her about a particularly brilliant chemist that worked for the Alliance.

“You see, most people have this process; where their mind goes from point A to point B to C to D, so on an