AN --- Well. Here's my debut into what's probably gonna be a very long career in Firefly fanfiction! I'm excited!

This is just something that hit me mid-Bushwacked.

I don't own anything, actually.

Review, please; lemme know if I got River!

She could hear them. See them, too, but not constantly like the voices. In her head, she could hear the voices of her brother's crewmates all the time. At first, when they spoke, she would turn, gasping for air like it had all been drained out of the room, surprised to find they weren't behind her when she knew they should have been. A tiny part of her recognized that she could never do this before; not with anyone, before the Academy. An even smaller part realized that hearing them; their thoughts, their emotions, their words, no matter the distance; wasn't something normal people could do. But rarely was she lucid enough to realize this - and even more rarely did she care.

And for what felt like forever, she didn't quite know why. All of her other new-found abilities, she could rationalize. Hearing screams when Simon insisted there was silence - forgetting and then suddenly remembering. Everything, everything, made sense to her at the very least, except for this. And then one day, they docked onto another ship. She didn't know where or why, but they were gone, and she was after them, (whoever they were) walking softly with cold bare feet.

Even as they rounded a bend in front of her, as she couldn't see them, she could in her head. Zoe and Mal, side by side, flashlights on, both on the edge, completely alert.

And with sudden certainty, she knew why.They all loved each other like she loved Simon (a feat she didn't think possible). Most of them most of the time didn't show it, but they did, more than was totally rational and in a very irrational way. And more then that, they completely and totally trusted each other (something even she wasn't capable of anymore).

Because they walked with their flashlight beams crossed, each watching the opposite side for danger, with their backs to the sides they were closest to. Totally under the other's control, their life in each other's hands. She supposed war did that to a person.

---Cayenne