Jayne woke up to River’s face, tilted inquisitively towards him. He groaned and shoved his head under his pillow, trying to block the image from his mind.

“What the hell do you want?” he growled, and it came out muffled, because he was still trying to pretend she hadn’t just wakened him up in the middle of the night.

“It’s always dark out here. Dark is night. Early came back to kill me, and you are going to help me get rid of him, for good this time,” River informed him quietly. “Back to kill me, just like I said, bullet to the brainpan.” She shook her head to clear her thoughts. “He’s blocking me out. No one can block me out; people’s minds are books for me.”

“So I’m a book, huh?” Jayne mumbled as he finally sat up and grabbed Vera. Yanking his boots on his feet, he glanced at River, and she was smiling.

“I didn’t say some books weren’t interesting.”

With that she stole out of his room, moving with the darkness itself; she was naught but a shadow. She moved more than gracefully, she was fluid, melting into the darkness.

Jayne blinked and laced his boots.

****

River slipped onto the bridge to check on Zoe, who was still watching the dinosaurs intently.

“Don’t glare at them,” River said, and Zoe turned her gaze on River.

“I can’t hear them. I’m trying to listen harder, but I still can’t hear,” Zoe groaned.

“Don’t listen harder; hear harder.”

With that, River was gone, leaving Zoe alone in the Black. Zoe prayed to whatever god might be listening that she made it back from it.

*****************

“Did you think I was dead? No one would be that lucky. That psychic monster has been living on your boat all this time, and I was floating in space for the equivalent of three days before my ship finally got to me. Does that seem fair to you?” Early asked, waving the gun around Inara’s temple. “Sit. Both of you. I’m going to lock you in, and once she is dead, you can go about your normal lives.”

But Mal and Inara knew something he didn’t; it wouldn’t be that normal without River. Rive