By lunch time, they’d managed to get all of the Reavers into the clearing, lined up in rows next to where they planned to dig the graves for each. ”That’s the last of’m, I’d say.” Kaylee said, wiping some sweat from her forehead and going over to River who was bringing one body over to lay it next to another. ”Why you doin’ that?” Kaylee asked curiously.

”They loved each other once, before they lost themselves somewhere out in the dark. Philippe Yang Se and Marcus Cole Wright – they had a son together, named Jared Cole Yang Se, and they had a nice… a nice life. They lost their knowing, lost their song, lost each other, all gone… but its right they should be together now, at the last… don’t you think so?” River asked her softly, and when her and Kaylee’s eyes met, Kaylee could see River’s eyes were a little misty, like she might cry if she thought about these things much longer.

Kaylee went to her and hugged her and felt River start to cry like she thought might happen. ”Its okay, River. It’ll be okay, I promise.” By this point, the question of how River might possibly know what the names of the two dead Reavers were was barely a concern for her. Sure, a sensible person would say that River was prob’bly just making things up, maybe to cope or make herself feel better or whatever else, but by this point, Kaylee surely didn’t think that was it at all. She’d seen too much. She had no good explanations and had since given up trying to get them from River herself whom, she thought, might well not even know herself. She did believe that River was connected to something, some greater knowledge or whatever it was, but, whatever the truth might be, she now believed in it – in River. That the things she said, they all had a meaning, even if Kaylee couldn’t always quite manage to guess at what those meanings might be.

”You have faith then?” River asked faintly.

Kaylee broke the hug and still held River in her arms as she gently wiped her girlfriend’s tears away with her thumb. ”I don’t know, maybe I do. I do today, at least.” Kaylee told her. ”And I love you, and you love me, and that makes a big difference too.”