Chapter 1

“River…meimei, are you alright?” Simon asked as he stepped onto Serenity’s bridge.

River continued to stare at the cortex screen on the pilot’s console, “I can’t find them…anywhere.”

“Can’t find who?” Simon inquired taking the co-pilot’s seat and looked at his sister worriedly.

“Our progenitors, the ones we called mom and dad,” River said looking up at her bother.

“Oh.”

She once again looked at the screen, her hand typing away at the keyboard, “They’re gone, like we are.”

River had gone on the cortex wanting to see her parent’s faces. Instead she found no trace of them. Just as any evidence of Simon’s and hers existence was gone, so too was any trace of her parents. Even their family estate had different owners listed.

“I’m sure they’re all right,” Simon tried to comfort.

“Lair!” River snapped back, “You think they’re dead. You’re not upset.”

“No, I’m not.” Simon said as he stood, “They left you. Neither of them would believe me. All they could think about was their perfect little lives. I…I can’t feel for them after that.”

Tears swelled in his sister’s eyes, “They’re still our parents.”

“They stopped being that when they stopped caring,” the Doctor stated as he walked off the bridge.

River Tam looked out into the blackness of space as she sobbed, “They never stopped caring.”

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“…I understand I was hard on her,” Mal explained as he leaned back in his chair and took a sip from his cup, “but she’s the only one on this ship that seems to forget that things need done before playing around.”

“I’m not taking her side, Mal. I just think you could have handled it a bit different,” Inara explained as she moved from the cooking area to the table with her cup of tea.

“She knew full well she was to have that water pump fixed ‘fore anything else,” Mal calmly argued.

Inara sat down next to him, “You did walk in on her and Simon, then yelled at her while she was naked.”

“Alright, might’ve been best to let her dress, but it ain’t like I bus