She would never tell anyone what she felt.

They came at night, starting just as the ship was quieting down. Feelings that her body was humming, a pitch to high to hear, shaking from her core to her fingertips. She couldn't describe it without sounding like a fool. The doc would pump her full of meds while River told her it would be ok. She couldn't say a thing. Walking the ship at night let her feel as though she was doing something productive with this. The humming was the most distracting. She could sometimes ignore the rest.

Ahh the rest. The over-active imagination part. She had never had one as a child, and still believed that. But what other answer was there. The feeling of a black cloud engulfing her. Her aura turned black as a demon, wrapping around her. This wasn't real. But she could taste the bile at the back of her throat everytime. The taste wouldn't leave, and water was no help. The humming distracted her, she couldn't be still, but this...presence drove her to her bunk. Like a small child hiding under the covers from the monsters under the bed. Curl up tight and think of better days, holding Wash's pillow tight to her body, she could still get a slight scent of him off it. Like an armor it helped, but only so much. Some nights it let her fall into a restless sleep, but other times it brought out a deep sadness that overwhelmed her.

She never knew what it was - something trying to get in, or something trying to get out. How do you protect yourself from an attack you can't see? How do you protect yourself from yourself? Sometimes as she paced through the ship moments of clarity would come to her, clarity which would not be considered so at any other time. The clarity would simply explain that it was a presence punishing her, and that she deserved it. If she could outlast it, she would be freed of it, and given peace. Other nights it would tell her that this was something being done to her, and she simply had to find out who it was. On bad nights, it would slip into her mind that this