+++

She’s not sleeping anymore.

She can tell because there’s no more yelling orders to dead soldiers. No more clenching and clutching as she intertwines with Kaylee. No more trying to learn dance steps that never come. No more screaming as her body is ripped apart by Reavers.

She can tell because things have shifted inside out, been given names and shapes. She can move and touch and hurt. This is the here and now, all the reality that life has to offer.

Her eyes are open, but she’s not awake.

---

A narrow tunnel of metal links voice to voice, thought to thought. All connected, like crimson gushing through veins and arteries, systemic circulation with a nine-chambered pump. She can feel it vibrating between her toes.

She drifts through the metal toward voices and strength.

One of the chambers opens below. Book and Kaylee are talking and thinking while Jayne keeps pushing a bar into the air and tries to do neither. There’s more room here, room for things. There’s a peace.

Her feet dance down the stairs. She passes Kaylee near the bottom, and there’s a greeting and concern as she continues toward Jayne with a curious smile.

She’s peering over the bar now, watching muscles pull and tendons strain. Striated phasic, fast twitch, her mind says. Bigger as parts but less than the whole, less than the smooth muscle underneath. All connected.

He tries to pretend she’s not there, like a passing Reaver ship.

"Shepherd-"

He’s going to ask for more weight. Her hands grasp the bar, and she pushes her feet off the metal. Don’t need no more weight. It’s too ruttin’ heavy already, but people’s watchin’. People what matter. Don’t want’em to think the clip’s empty.

"That ain’t... got nuthin’... to do with it!"

There’s suppressed laughter.

He throws the embarrassment toward her with a grunt and her feet rise higher off the floor. He’s farther, then closer, then farther. She lifts her feet over her head and balances upside down on the bar, watching his face redden. Her hands grip tighter