River knows that Simon doesn't like it when she goes Outside; she knows he's afraid of the dark and the cold, and he doesn't understand why she loves it there, with nothing between herself and the Black but a thin, thin layer of glass.
She doesn't know how to explain it to him- and that is true of so many, many things. The words are there, but they can't get past the things in her head, the voices and the pictures and the secrets, so huge and frightening and loud. She's stopped trying to explain it.
Every chance she gets, she goes for a walk Outside. She doesn't know how to share the vastness of the Black with Simon, or the way her head goes quiet for a little while. Out there, she thinks she could talk to him about anything, about everything. The secrets are smaller there- everything is smaller there, so small, so tiny. They could be fly-sized, for all the notice the 'Verse gives her when she holds to Serenity's hull. The voices fade away until she can hear the singing of stars, each one humming at a particular frequency, pulsing out lightwaves in time with the heartbeat of the 'Verse.
It's just her and the stars, and Serenity, warm/cold and alive beneath her. Simon is afraid he'll lose her to the Black one of these days, and she wants to tell him that he can't lose her when she's tethered to Serenity, clinging like a child. Serenity won't let her go, because Serenity knows her, knows she's not ready yet.
She doesn't think Simon will understand, and she doesn't think she can get the words out past the secrets. But she just wishes Simon could know what it feels like, to be rocked asleep by Serenity, listening to the lullabye of a hundred thousand singing stars.
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