FIC: Alice's Room (Firefly)

[mhalachai]

Title: Alice's Room
Author: Mhalachai
Summary: River lives in a world of her own... more true than even she knows. Rather AU.
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Timeline: Set after Serenity, after a fashion.
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and company own all things Firefly and Serenity. I am merely borrowing the characters and story, and will put them back at the end.
Note: This is the idea I had a few days ago. I'm not sure what to think of it, frankly. Tell me what you think. Marcus and Mah are my characters, in case you are wondering. The story will be explained by the end of the 678 words.

~~*~~

"What's happening?"

Marcus looked up from the video screen as Mah came into the room. "She's resting."

Mah bent over the screen, watching as River Tam leaned against her brother Simon in the infirmary of the ship, Serenity. "She's had a long month."

"A long month, this week."

Marcus pushed himself back from the screens, and walked over to the glass window that looked down onto the bound body of River Tam, wrapped in memory and muscle stimulating wires and a neural net that projected every detail of her drug-induced dreams onto Alliance screens. "Every day is a long day here." He turned his back on River, no longer able to look at her frail body. "How much longer? How many more days will we fill her head with? With this false hope?"

Mah pushed buttons on the screens. "The Reavers attached Persephone today," he said. "Over three thousand men, women and children butchered, horribly."

"That's not the--"

A second later, Mah's fist slammed into Marcus's windpipe, cutting off his air in a rush of pain. "That is the point!" Mah hissed, shoving Marcus up against the wall. "After all this time, don't you understand? The Reavers are growing in strength by the day! This child is the only one who has made it this far in the training! She is our last hope!"

"To save us from that which we created?" Marcus wheezed. Mah let him go, and he slid to the ground, coughing.

"No matter what happened, it is past," Mah said, looming over the scientist. "What matters is all those people being eaten alive on the border worlds! How long do you think the Reavers will be content to lurk out there? How long before they come here, looking for fresh meat?"

Marcus looked back at the screen. He didn't want to have this argument, because Mah was right. "What about her brother?" he asked instead, nodding at the screen, where River dreamed that her brother held her at his side, safe. "Was she wrong to think he would come after her?"

"No." Mah almost smiled. "He started asking the right questions to the right people. He'll be in a tiny cell for the rest of his life."

"Why not just kill him?" Marcus asked sarcastically, but Mah took the question seriously.

"We may need him, after she... wakes up."

"After we loose her on the world."

"If you wish to give it that name, yes."

Marcus pushed himself to his feet, rubbing his sore throat. "Will her parents come for her?"

"No." Mah wandered over to stare down at River's body. "They were told that Simon died scandalously; they believe their virtuous daughter is learning. They have such high hopes for her."

"And now we ask her to save the world."

"What more can we ask of anyone?" Mah asked, turning to leave.

"What of the rest of them?" Marcus asked. He pointed up at the screen as Captain Malcolm Reynolds came into River's consciousness. After having watched Serenity's crew for so long, he knew everything about them. Except if they were real, or if a lonely River Tam had created them in her mind to keep her company in the black.

Mah leaned over to open the door with the retinal scanner. "Does it matter?" he asked. "It only matters if she believes they are real."

The door sealed behind Mah, and Marcus went back to his chair, to once more watch River Tam's dreams play out on screens for all to see.

There was no excuse for what they were doing. Building up her hopes and dreams.... until the one day they had planned for, when she was ready -- intrude on her dreams, have the dream Reavers kill off her family on Serenity, one by one.

Then they would wake her up, and send her to avenge people who may have never have existed.

They could save millions of lives, if this girl could truly stop the Reavers.

And God would never forgive them for destroying River Tam in the process.

the end

Comments

[cissasghost.livejournal.com]

That is . . absolutely wonderfully horrible. I love it. I think. Gah.

One small error - "After we lose her on the world." - I think you meant loose.

-Sonya

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

and I stared at that word, too, trying to see if it was the right version. Oh well. I'm functionally illiterate at 10 pm.

You don't love it. You hates it, the precious fic. (I'm not sure why I'm so set to have everyone dislike this thing so). Anyway, it gets the point across.

[catherinecookmn.livejournal.com]

Heh! And all for a "good cause", eh?

Sounds like some Soviet SF I've read.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

The old Vulcan credo, the needs of the many, etc.

[catherinecookmn.livejournal.com]

A-yep. People who are horrified by Stalin's deeds need to recall that the Russian czars would have loved to have done what he did -- they just didn't have the tools. Czarist Russian military units were expected to retain unit cohesion with 90% of their members dead and gone. The Potemkin mutiny, as eminently justifiable to us as it was (and it was!), profoundly shocked the Russian aristocracy of the time: Russian peasants had put up with far worse without complaint.

[practical-puss.livejournal.com]

:whimper:
Poor River. Poor everybody, really. How is it that you can write funny and witty as well as you can, "I'm going to go off myself now, hope you don't mind."? It's really not fair.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

I'm... sorry?

[practical-puss.livejournal.com]

I'll get over it. But... Poor River, you know? I'm sad now. Must re-read Switchback.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Your idea of cheering up is certainly different than mine, gotta say ;)

[practical-puss.livejournal.com]

I like angst. I'm probably a bad person for this, but I was kind of happy when I realized Anita had been psychologically traumatized.
What am I saying, probably?

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

then does that make me a bad person for writing the fic in the first place? Speaking of which, I've been depressing myself for days with that fic. Maybe I should just shove my way through the chapter I'm stuck on.

[practical-puss.livejournal.com]

Couldn't hurt.
Now if you make your legions of fanpeople wait much longer...

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

The problem is that I don't want to write it. Mainly because Anita doesn't want to be living it. Meh. We'll see.

[practical-puss.livejournal.com]

"Anita doesn't want to be living it."

That I can buy. You do seem to have a habit of torturing your charactors.

[sabriel-0405.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Very, very interesting.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Yes, interesting is a good description. I don't actually like it (the content, I mean -- the writing is fine), but I think that's a good thing -- evoking such emotion in the author and in the audience is a good thing.

[catherinecookmn.livejournal.com]

Oh, exactly. It does precisely what it's supposed to do. (Just as the latest chappies of Inevitable (one of which I'm riffing a drabble from even as we speak, so nyahhh!) do exactly what they should. :-)

[sorceress-death.livejournal.com]

Whoa, never seen that happen before. I love this stuff. Interesting, per usual. ^^

Man, I really need to make a River icon now.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

I have a deep hatred for AU Fics, and so of course I wrote the most depressting one of all. It just popped up in my head one night and it demanded to be written!

Far be it for me to say no.

The world always needs more River icons :)

[thymidinekinase.livejournal.com]

Neat. It reminds me strongly of _Ender's Game_.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

There are aspects of Ender's Game, true. Although which is better? Isolating a child, or building fake memories? (Ender learning to fight to protect Val, or River fighting to avenge Simon)

[thymidinekinase.livejournal.com]

Gah. I'd have to say that what happened to Ender was less bad than what happened to River (either standard-River or your wirehead-River, actually). They rarely actually lied to Ender. He got to fly around in null-g and play cool video games. He had alternatives, if not a lot of choice. He got Val back. They didn't carve chunks out of his brain, at least not physically. The fact that they stretched his heart and spirit tight enough to break is pretty abstract, by comparison.

[houses7177.livejournal.com]

Clever but depressing. I can definitely see why this demanded to be written.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

And I really did *not* want to write this, it's just such a downer, but the idea stuck in my head. At least with those other ideas that do that (Such as Magnolia) they're fun and exciting.

At least I learned a valuable lesson -- I don't have to like something to wrote about it.

[watcher457.livejournal.com]

wow. um... nice. interesting. depressing as hell. i like it in the visceral response it invokes. it's an interesting look into the things some people can do, but i hate actually thinking up things like that. makes me feel like a sick freak sometimes that i can get into that headspace. perhaps that's why you don't like it.

and that will be $100, mhal. see you on my couch next week. *rolls eyes at self*

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

the reason i don't like it is the same reason i don't like those alternate timeline things on Star Trek, and part of the reason Switchback weirds me out a bit -- if something happens, but it *doesn't*, then what's the point of it all? Etc.

Man, I'm woozy. See what staying up late to write FF fic does to me? ;)

[watcher457.livejournal.com]

i'm not quite sure i'm following what you mean. sort of... doing something, then having it start over, and whatever you tried so hard to accomplish suddenly means nothing?

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Sort of. More like doing something and having it mean less than nothing; it's come undone. It's hard to explain, it's sort of like my spatial paranoia. Never mind me.

[watcher457.livejournal.com]

that's okay. everyone has a mental concept that is just terrifying to think about. well, i think everyone does. i do.

[uforeah.livejournal.com]

That was chilling. And yet, I could see something like that happening if people had the technology to do it. What a great way to create the ulitmate fighter.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

That's part of what I tried to point out in here -- when does it become "acceptable" to destroy someone? When 10 lives are on the line? 30? Three billion?

Morality become grey at times like that.

[thekams.livejournal.com]

Interesting, very interesting. Poor River...all for naught, eh?

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Depends on who you talk to. At least Simon will be kept alive.

[thekams.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is true! Very much so a person to person view on things, then.

[silver-venus42.livejournal.com]

AHHHHHHH. What? That's sad, if all that River was going through was just made up in her head. I think that would be one of the most devastating things that could happen to person. Expecially if she realized it. (And Simon in jail...*tear*)

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

I am in total agreement with you on that. It's a horrible thing.

And at least Simon's in jail, not dead. A tiny ray of light.

[practical-puss.livejournal.com]

Like a laser-pointer in a black hole.

[penyn-1600.livejournal.com]

The End?! This is just...fantastic and sad and disturbing.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Yup, the end. I can't bear to go on. On, er, the fic.

umm

[stealthyshade.livejournal.com]

"The Reavers attached Persephone today,"
Attacked maybe?
and yes, very depressing. good, but in that look at your wrists and consider slitting them kind of way.

[hartswood47.livejournal.com]

Trippy. I love your use of dialogue to explain the main concepts in the ficlet. ^_^ Very Well written.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Thank you! There is an old adage of "show, don't tell", but tend to ignore that when the Dialouge Fairy is visiting :P