Disclaimer: Firefly is the property of Joss Whedon.

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She moves. Her hips sway, her arms wave, her feet step. Her body is a canvas on which music can paint a picture, on which she can express herself howsoever she chooses.

She always did love to dance. When she was a girl she would dance just for the sake of dancing. She was always first in her class to learn a new routine and she was always magnificent at it. She never missed a step, a beat. She was always prima ballerina.

Now she dances still. She dances with tears in her eyes, Serenity’s cold metal deck plates imprinting into the soles of her feet, leaving marks. She dances with a smile on her face, the warm grass beneath her feet when Simon lets her outside sometimes while they’re out planet-side.

She dances to the phantom notes of music she imagines she can hear floating on the thick, recycled air around her. The notes are soft and ethereal; they are the beginnings of a sorrowful waltz. The music fills her with a phantom longing, a longing for the times that used to be. For the times that would never be again.

When she dances she feels free and whole. She can escape the nightmares; she can put herself out of reach of the blue hands, of all those people that tortured her. She is safe from her own brother’s concern which, although completely warranted, is sometimes a little burdening and overwhelming.

Her body moves; she sashays, twirls, spins. She spins quickly and quicker still until she loses focus, until she feels herself beginning to fall. She stares up at the cold metal hull overhead, looming over her as she catches her breath and the world stops spinning. She feels the cold metal deck plates beneath her back as she lays there, putting the pieces together again.

Every day she takes another step, another leap in the dance of life. Every day she spins. She can never stop spinning. Her life revolves around her and the lines become blurr