Repost.

Disclaimer: Joss is the primary inspiration, and owns everything. But I also have to give some credit to GillianRose and Alexis Machine for their infirmary scenes; I had to do one of my own after reading them, and I confess there’s similarities.

A lot of other ideas and references came together for this, as well, so it might be all over the place. Starts a little weird and probably rambles a bit, but I hope you’ll enjoy.

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He’d been riding up sunbeams on horseback and very appreciative of morphine when a wind howled into existence and he opened his eyes to the cold beyond, confused.

The hell was this? Didn’t recall his Ma as having a river cascading to her shoulders, or being quite so frail looking. The phantom’s stare was wild, and a new chill crept onto the battlefield. Witches, he remembered, who spoke good and terrifying in the same breath and knew the future. The wraith pressed a prophesy into his hand, then departed like a breath, sent her three shadows to swallow him.

Later he woke again to Simon’s fussing and managed to recognize his own infirmary. His fingers were curled around a wrapped piece of melted candy. “Outta lollipops?” he slurred. His brain felt like it was stuck to the roof of his mouth.

The doctor looked up from the sorting that apparently couldn’t wait until grumpy captains weren’t trying to sleep, and smiled upon realizing what he was talking about. The former core dweller took the colourful little deformed ball from his patient, rolling it around in his hands nostalgically. “Back on Osiris, River used to get cards and candy for all of her classmates on Valentine’s Day.”

He felt too old to tell the younger man that he was too old for that. “How’d she get real chocolate, anyway?” The medical genius’s sentimental expression grew slightly troubled, thinking over the only real conclusion, and after a few seconds his own slowed faculties caught up. “She stole ‘em,” he grinned sleepily, an unexpected moment of pride,