Serenity: Deception

Prologue

Her leather gloves creaked as she made anxious fists. She was alone; she spent most of her time that way. River longed to go back to her hotel room and sink into a hot bath, close her eyes and listen to soothing music. She thought about the strawberry ice cream at the hotel restaurant and the expensive coffee flavoured with vanilla. River could taste the bitterness of two vodka tonics on the back of her tongue. Her cocoa coloured waves of hair fell naturally around her face and down onto her shoulders.

Between her black vest and the waist of her pants, a strip of her bare skin peeked out with a small cluster of freckles half concealed by the top of her pants. Her all-black cowboy boots had polished toes that reflected the light that occasionally came through the window of the office she was hiding inside.

Serenity was long gone; it had been for the past seven months. Now the crew was on some other planet, probably helping someone or in trouble or about to be in trouble. Mal would find a way to save the day, he always had. She wondered if the crew's newest job would be conning or smuggling or perhaps, Mal found some honest work. Whatever it was, River was sad to miss it but she had her own work, her own mission. She couldn't go back now.

Simon told her not to come back. She stepped off Serenity, a ship she had loved for over a year, against Simon's wishes and as far as she knew, he didn't want to see her again. Siblings fight, River knew. It was a new principle for her. Simon had spent so much time taking care of her that she forgot about the arguments they had gotten into when they were younger. River was different now. She had grown up behind his back and he didn't know how to let her go. He didn't know how to let her do what she had to do and be the person she had to be. Simon held onto the past the way older siblings often do, too used to their younger sibling being a child.

In the last seven months, River had created her own identity, free of Simon. It wasn't easy at first but she gradually discovered her own tastes and her own vices. Vices were what shaped a person-everyone had them. For River, nothing satisfied like a vodka tonic. It began a night and ended one with equal charm and grace. She adored the perpetual thrill of dance clubs that played music from dusk to dawn. She was alive through the night as the smell of sweat and alcohol hung aloft over an ever-moving, energized crowd of buzzing bodies.

She found the simple joy of sleeping in a large, plush bed surrounded by clouds of white linen and pillows, remarkable. River had been alone for seven months and had learned to love it. Of course she missed the crew, hearing Kaylee laugh at bad jokes and listening to Mal bark orders but she had to go. She couldn't know what she wanted in life without experiencing a little bit of life first.

As she waited in the dark, River thought back to a story she once told the crew, a story they lived together and nearly died during. It reminded her of all the best things about Serenity. It made her miss everything about Serenity like most reminiscences tended to do. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath and for a second thought she could smell the stale air of the ship that flew fuelled by love. And in that moment, River revisited that story.