Room 234/236: Tuesday evening

[mparkerceo]

Parker had just finished wrapping Jack's present, and was now staring at the phone. After the weekend she'd had, then talking to Xander about the Centre, and Jack last night, and then dealing with a grieving Anders and unsettled Bridge, and depressed Chris and downcast Isabel today, about the only semi-cheerful conversation she'd had in days had

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[lovechildblair]

"What bothered you about this weekend?" Blair asked, leaning forward. It helped him to think that even Parker was thrown off by the events in space.

[mparkerceo]

"Aside from the sheer grossness of those Reavers?" Parker tilted her head, trying to think of what had thrown her first, or the worst. "I'm so angry that the government screwed up like that, then didn't publically admit it. Or do anything to fix it." She slowly let out a breath. "And I'm bugged because we may not ever know for certain how it came out. Although I suppose River could check back in, and let us know."

[lovechildblair]

"Yeah." Blair said. Not as much an agreement as an acknowledgment of what Parker had said.

[mparkerceo]

"And I get frustrated. You can try really hard to make a difference, and then..." She trailed off, then nodded to Blair, putting her cup down. "So. Which part was the worst for you, this weekend?"

[lovechildblair]

"We did make a difference, I think." Blair said and sighed, looking down at his cup. "You're not going to be happy when I tell you, Parker."

[mparkerceo]

"Par for the course this week." She sighed, then smiled as reassuringly as she could. "Hit me with it anyway."

[lovechildblair]

"I didn't like the reaver parts either. Especially not the fighting part." Blair stopped and decided to say the last part in a rush. "It was River. The barfight. The reaction to Miranda. The...killing. All the killing."

[mparkerceo]

Parker nodded, not surprised. "You know that some of that wasn't her, right? The barfight-- I still don't know what set her off. But that wasn't something she was in control of. The rest of it...." She sighed, drawing her knees up to her chin, and just studying Blair. "Was pretty awful too."

[lovechildblair]

"She was supposed to be better." Blair said, his voice somewhere between desperate and pleading. "Her brother came before and thigns were going so well. She was off sometimes, but that's just the way River works. Then the PsiCop and the nightmares and then in space...it's like the River that I know is gone. She was a different person. Totally different."

[mparkerceo]

"Too different?" Parker asked softly. She thought of Angelo, and what she'd give to have him be coherent and sane. "Blair, we may never know all of what happened to her. There might always be a new thing coming through, some remnant of what happened to her."

[lovechildblair]

"I never thought River would be too different." Blair said, giving a humorless laugh. "She read minds. She knew things. She danced to music that nobody else heard. She broke my arm the day of our first date."

"But that was before I saw her this weekend. This wasn't just drawing on my protest signs or feeding ice cream to Berthold. She was drenched in their blood, Parker!"

[mparkerceo]

And that was a sight that was going to show up in Parker's nightmares too, for a while to come. "Yeah. I know." She put her cup down, and watched Blair a moment, then carefully said, "It was for a good cause. Several. Our survival. Righting a horrible, terrible wrong. And they didn't leave her any good choices, Blair. They weren't going to listen to you, or anyone."

[lovechildblair]

"I know that, I do. If we hadn't had her there, we would have all probably died." Blair said quietly, setting his cup next to Parker's. "I'm not trying to be ungrateful or anything, it's just hard to look at her now and not see that part."

"Or worry that the part of her that did that is going to come to the surface again."

[mparkerceo]

"I wish I could tell you that's not a valid worry." Parker traced the rim of her cocoa cup. "But I can't." She looked up. "Her brother is watching over her reactions; she's got us. But yes. She has some very scary skills, and a lot of problems."

[lovechildblair]

"Got us?" Blair shook his head. "I don't know about the rest of us, but if she gets into something like this weekend nothing I'm going to do is going to stop her. Not even counting the reavers, she took down lots of people in that bar."

"We can watch her and we can help her, but I don't know that we could protect people from her. Much less ourselves."

[mparkerceo]

"She did. And then Kaylee shut her down," Parker said steadily. "And there are more drugs, and tranquilizers; and I think that getting past what happened on Miranda can only help her." She sighed. "But no, Blair. There's no guarantees."