• * *

"Do you think you love her? Or is she spinach?"

Simon pauses, the sliver of metal a scant millimetre away from penetrating her skin. He knows that she hates this and dreads it and that she will lash out in any way she can, desperate for distraction. He thought he was used to it.

"I'm not – I mean, I've never, I'm not sure what – of course she isn't spinach." He swallows, suddenly dry mouthed, and steps away from her. River is trembling, and he doesn't know whether this is a physiological or psychological symptom. She looks paler than usual. She looks nothing at all like Kaylee, and for the tiniest fragment of a moment he wishes that she did not exist at all, and that he could simply lose himself in Kaylee's warm curves and not spend his life worrying about his crazy-brilliant baby sister. He is instantly ashamed of the thought. And if not for River, he would not know Kaylee, or want to know her. And anyway, he cannot conceive of a life without River, even this River. "We aren't talking about this. It's really none of your business." She stares at him, and he doesn't know how to interpret her expression at all. "Now please, River, just stay still for me. Please stay still. I need to do your blood work to see whether the new meds – no, don't do that." The patience in his voice is cracking. River's knuckles are white where she clasps his wrist. She's hurting him.

"Because I like her. I don't think you should hurt her, Simon." He stumbles as he steps away, shaking his arm so violently to free it that she is almost pulled off the bed. He is breathing too fast.

"I'm not! I don't – what – I have no intention of discussing my love life with you. If I had a love life, which I still really don't, beyond a few kisses, because when the (need appropriate Chinese) would I have time for a love life, when I can't leave you alone for more than five minutes without you trying to cut of Jayne's head or opening an air lock, but if I ever were to have such a thing then it's not the sort of thing I'd want to discuss with my baby sister." He stops, startled by the tumble of words, and there is a little pause before he continues more calmly. "Really. This is almost as embarrassing as it is disturbing, which makes it about normal for my family right now. We're not talking about this, River."

"I've ruined everything," River whispers, pulling her knees up under her chin with a grace that is wholly out of place here. She wraps thin arms around her knees and hugs herself hard, staring at Simon accusingly through hair like straggled sea wrack. They have had this conversation before, too many times, and it hurts. "You shouldn't be here, learning to like mush. I've ruined everything for you."

"Yes you have," he snaps, because it has been months since he's had a good night's sleep, and because he misses his old life too, even though it makes him feel guilty as sin, even though he would do it all again without a second thought. Simon is only human, and there is a corner of his heart that feels nostalgic for the days when he believed everything was right with the world, that could almost wish he had never guessed something was wrong.

The shocked silence that follows is like a blow. Her eyes widen, suddenly gleaming with unshed tears, and he flinches at his own words. "No," he says, shaken. "No, I didn't mean – that's not – River, you know that it doesn't matter." He feels sick. He didn't mean it. She must know that. "None of it matters. Just you. Nothing matters but you, River. I love you." She shrinks away. He cannot bear it. "Look at me. Look at me, River!" His fingers close over her shoulders, but she is pressing her face into her knees and she will not look at him. "You know it doesn't matter," he tells her urgently, leaning close and whispering into her ear. Her hair brushes against his mouth. Simon is trembling. "Nothing matters, nobody matters – only you. Always you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, mei-mei, River, darling, sweetheart." He is crying. There were long years when he had never cried at all, when he thought that he was too old for tears. He can't believe how stupid he once was. She still hasn't looked at him, and his fingers are digging too hard into her thin shoulders now but he simply can't stop himself. He is standing too close; her crossed arms and folded legs are hard against his chest, forcing a barrier between him and the fierce knot of her body. "Please talk to me." She has to understand. She mumbles something into her kneecaps, but he can't make it out. "What? What did you say?"

To his relief, she looks up at last. There is a trail of snot snaking towards her upper lip, and tears streaking her face. She looks, unexpectedly, quite livid.

"I said I know, you idiot. I know you love me, I know you're sorry, I know, I'm not stupid, you rube. But I ruined it all, and you miss it, clean shirts and clean conscience. You know you do. And I make you feel like a failure, and you're angry with that, aren't you? Because you can't fix me, you can't undo it ever, Humpty Dumpty fallen down the rabbit hole, looking glass all smashed, no way back now." He stares. Her face is very close to his now, and she doesn't look like a child at all. She looks like a stranger speaking a language he almost knows, the planes of her face pure and angry. "I know what you want. You want to escape into her, don't you? You want to pretend it isn't real, and play at being someone else. She makes you feel like someone else. She lets you forget. You want to forget. You still don't see her. You don't see me." Simon doesn't know what to say. "Some days I think I could hate you."

"I don't – I never meant," he stammers. "I just want to help. I love you."

"Not enough, though," River snarls, unfurling her limbs with a speed that leaves him breathless. Suddenly Simon is enfolded in her le

"Not enough, though," River snarls, unfurling her limbs with a speed that leaves him breathless. Suddenly Simon is enfolded in her legs and arms, an embrace that feels more like an attack. He laughs uncertainly, breathlessly, and she makes a frustrated noise almost like a growl. "Stupid. Stupid. Thicker than water. You're clinging to outdated paradigms, trying to hold on to the wrong thing. Spinach. Stupid." Her breath is hot on his neck. He wraps his arms around her uncertainly and pats her on the back like a colicky infant. "No! Not like that," she says, and her wet mouth closes shockingly over his earlobe. He jumps, and yelps, and she bites down hard.

"River! River, I – what do you think – stop it! Stop it right now!"

She pulls her head back far enough that she can look at him. His eyes meet hers, questions and protests bristling unspoken between them, things he doesn't know how to say (surely he has misunderstood this?), and then she darts forward and kisses his mouth in a way that will not allow any misunderstanding at all.

Desire uncurls somewhere inside, all the more tempting for being utterly forbidden. His body, he finds, really does not care what is acceptable.

He pushes her away. He is shaking.

"No," he says unevenly. Her fingers are still tangled in his hair. She is hurting him. "No. No. This is wrong." Simon's voice is stronger now. She snorts, looking at him with that same pitying look she would always use when he made some assertion that she, his precious, precocious pain of a sister knew to be nonsense – even though all the books confirmed his ideas – and it is all so familiar and so intimate, so hideously, impossibly right that he feels exhilarated and sick to his stomach.

"Stupid," she says, pulling away from him slowly. "You'll see. I know, you dummy. I'm right." She sits back on the table and cocks her head, studying him closely. He stares at her, lost for words. She smiles, and offers him her arm. He looks at it blankly, and against all expectation she laughs. "Blood," she says. "It's what you wanted."

You know, I'm completely Firefly-ignorant. Never watched it.

But the fic? Is lovely lovely lovely.

Thank you! ( Firefly broke my heart. Or rather, F*x did. Curse them.)

Hodgeberries!

That having been said, it's lovely.

Today's Open On Sunday challenge is books, any context. Here's my first one:

The Secret Garden

In her mind, poor fragmented missing thing, she is a child, but not the child she was.

Instead, her name is Mary, and she lived a long time ago. She lives with a distant, unhappy uncle in an enormous house in Yorkshire. Somewhere in the house, her spoiled frightened cousin Colin keeps to his bed, crying in the night.

In her mind, they find the door to a secret garden, and bring it to life, and the shuttered dead house comes to life with it.

Outside her mind, Willow cries over her, and swears to get her back from Glory.

OWCH.

Oh, owch. Go Deb.

Oh, dear. I have literally no clue where that one came from. It was one of the books that was read to me rather a lot when I was a child, sick in bed - but rather nice, I think, imagining that poor fuddled Tara was having a lovely wander with Dickon, feeding the robin, and not screaming hopelessly for Willow.

I love it Fay! But damn you for making me miss Firefly even more.

Fay! Firefly! wibble