Thanks to my beta, firefly_124.

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She’s careful, so careful during those first few months – listening for Zoe and not sitting in his seat, not moving his dinosaurs, even when the echoes of Wash ask her to play with them.

A part of her, that most logical part, wishes to point out that it’s not Wash’s seat – not really – that it’s a replacement for the one the Reaver spike ruined. But the newer part, the part that feels … better, more in control after Miranda, argues that being logical isn’t the same as being right, and she keeps quiet.

~

Night after night, their voices whisper at the edges of her mind, and after three months, Zoe’s restless haunting of the bridge during ship’s night lessens enough that River goes to them.

Harvey, the big Tyrannosaurus rex, is the loudest, speaking though River in Wash’s gruffest voice, “This is my palm tree, and you will not have it!” River moves Harvey around in little circles, squinting so that her focus falls only on the arms, the short appendages seeming to flail in ways that mean fighting and ownership.

Matilda’s voice is high and clear, and she bristles her Stegosaurus spinal plates as she says, “No, the palm tree belongs to all the dinosaurs at the oasis! I will fight you for it!”

“Then you will die! Grargh!”

They come together in a clack of plastic.

Shrieks and grunts fill the cockpit, as the onlookers scream support for their favorite, Wally and Bea yelling for Matilda overtop of Art’s deep, “Harv, Harv, Harv.”

Harvey’s teeth lunge for Matilda with a clack while she swipes at his underbelly with her pointed tail spikes. Scrape.

“Grrr. Grargh! Die!” Harvey yells, thrusting forward to rip at her throat.

Clack.

“Never!” Twisting to force her spinal plates between her and the Tyrannosaurus, Matilda screams again, “Never!”

Scrape.

They part to circle, each looking for an opening to begin the third round, when River hears the faintest scuff of shoe behind her. She quiets the echoes of Wash in her mi