simon_doctor | (no subject)

Maybe she's not there.

Oh wait, there's her voice. "There's a moat. You'll have to pay a toll."

An amused smile. "How much are you charging?" he asks through the door.

River's voice sounds as if it's coming from near the floor. It also sounds as if she's in a good mood.

"Variable. Bargaining is the approved custom."

"I'll bring you dumplings," he offers.

Silence.

And then, rather more cheerfully, "Bribery is a successful approach. We'll have to call you a rapscallion."

Offer accepted, Simon!

He slides the door open, and steps in.

And sits down on the floor next to River, craning his neck to look at what she's doing.

She has acquired a newspaper -- from Milliways, one would logically assume, since it looks to be written in cuneiform.

She's also got a collection of colored pencils, and she's been very precisely inking designs that look a lot like fractals around the headlines. (You know, insofar as fractals can be replicated with colored pencils on newsprint.)

(Astonishingly well, if you're River Tam.)

"What're you drawing, meimei?"

"It's a map," River says to the paper, a little distantly.

Though there's also a faint thread of patience in her voice: you should know this, that tone says.

"Cryptographic representation. We'll call it the treasure."

He watches for another moment, then looks at her.

"River?"

River's staring at her paper.

Her eyes cut to him, through a tangled curtain of hair; it's another moment or two before she sets her pencil down (a very soft tap) and shoves her hair back.

(It'll fall forward again in a minute anyway.)

"I got a wave, a little while ago." Gently. "With an offer that might ... change things."

"You're thinking," River says softly.

"Yes." No louder.

"I could really make a difference," he says, looking straight at her with an expression of wistful hope.

Blink and he hasn't moved, hasn't said anything.

Softer, "You want to."

He always has.

"It would involve a lot of readjustment. For all of us."

A beat.

"I'd have to leave Serenity."

River's fingers shift slowly, pressing against air.

She's silent; she's listening.

"The job is on Praxed. We'd be settling there."

He's studying her face, trying to gauge her reaction. A little disquieted by the lack thereof so far.

"You'd have a choice."

"Got work."

It's hard to tell if she means him, or her; if she's filling in facts, or objecting, or just asking.

"That's right," he says quietly.

River nods a little, and her eyes fall to her fractal map drawing.

She doesn't say anything, for a minute.

"I want this to be your choice." His tone hasn't changed. "Like when I had to stay on Osiris for the class. You could come with us, or you could stay on Serenity."

A beat.

"You don't have to decide right away."

River's eyes close.

"I don't want to," she whispers.

River's grown up a lot, these past few years. All the same, sometimes she still sounds very young.

"Everybody's choices, and, and they're splitting."

"Meimei..."

He reaches to put a hand on her shoulder.

"I know. I'm sorry."

River leans into the touch.

"Gonna be okay," she whispers. "I know it."

"Come here," he murmurs, and gathers her into a hug.

River's arms slip around his neck.

Her drawing is getting a little crumpled under one knee. She doesn't seem to notice.

"You're right," he murmurs. "We're going to be okay. All of us."

He draws back just enough to look her in the face.

"Whatever we decide. And whatever you decide."

"Everybody."

River curls forward to rest her forehead against the nearest surface, which is more or less Simon's cheekbone.

He rubs her back lightly.

Soft: "We have time."

Unspoken: "Not much." "Enough."