***

River knows that Miranda wasn't the only secret they had.

It was the big one, the one hammering its way out of their skulls and into hers. But there were others. One of the officials who'd toured the facility had been far more intent on something else. She'd felt it in him. She'd seen it.

River closes her eyes and sees again now the memory of someone else's memory. Arms outstretched in front of her as if they were her own. Masculine hands that hold up a thick, matte-black binder on a polished wooden table. The hands page through the heavy report, an official whitepaper. Formulas, equations, schematics, all supporting a central theory.

It's only now, two months after they loosed Miranda's secrets on the world, that River has the time and the clarity of thought to consider the memories of these other secrets. Like the black binder. She knows it's terribly important, but she can't remember why.

Two whole months, as roughly and archaically calculated by the synodic period of old Earth's solitary moon. Two months, and Zoë still avoids her without being obvious about it. She's grateful for that. Hard enough to be on the ship with her because--

Because--

River tries to shut it out, the memory of the first full blow of Zoë's grief. Wash was dead because of the Reavers and cosmic bad luck. And Zoë had cast one venomous look at River as they'd prepared to hold the line; a single thought, laced with hatred:

You knew. Didn't you?

River had known. At least in an abstract way. She'd known he was dead before it happened. But it had been just another horror she couldn't push away. And it was too hard, back then, to separate the knowing from the nightmares.

And it had been nothing compared to the finality of the fact itself, experiencing it in realtime. The worst part the realization that Zoë would never turn loose of her agony, never speak of it, never allow herself any closure or the normal stages of grieving. She would keep it coiled tightly inside her foreve