She mentally goes back over her wordings, then - "Yeah. I'm ready."

There is a neat glowy magical effect associated with being hooked up to the wish thing.

And River recites her first - most complicated - wish wording.

With a kind of rushing sensation, it goes through.

"Congratulations. Golden, take them home?"

"Sure."

Pop.

And River, unable to figure out where her body is in relation to her surroundings without her usual senses, stumbles and falls over. Zoe catches her before she hits the ground.

"- you okay?"

She mumbles a bit, then, slowly and carefully and a bit like she can't hear herself for sure - "I think I was using my powers for most everything. Other senses don't work right - probably a me thing, not a all psychics, I have some brain damage... Gonna turn powers back on then figure out what I can have off more slowly."

"Makes sense. Do you need me for anything?"

"Don't think so," River says,

"We're good," Zoe says, helping River sit on the floor so she's more stably balanced. "Oh - her brother might appreciate some way to learn healing that's good enough for brains - River's got it pretty bad but doesn't let other people mess with her head - but it sounds like we'll have proper channels for that kind of thing soon."

"Yeah, Gem has channels for things all over the place. Uh, popular generic healing spell is one and done for everything so if she likes her brain damage and gets hurt some other way get a rock or a wizard to fix whatever's wrong rather than somebody with the sorcery version, if you have the time to be discriminating."

With her power back on she's able to hear that properly through Zoe's ears. Borrowing people's senses is really really nice actually.

"Don't like it, just don't want strangers messing with it. I'll look at what the sorcery version does, I guess."

"I have the sorcery version if you want."

"What's it do?"

"...everything. It took hundreds of years to design, it covers all kinds of weird things apart from excepting old age qua old age and having an option to leave scars behind for obscure political reasons. It does injuries, poisons, autoimmune responses, diseases, ingrown toenails, you name it."

"Does it work off what I want done, or resetting damage, or some idea of what good health is?"

"The latter, but it's species-independent within the category 'humanoids' so it's referring to a pretty broad conception there."

She thinks.

Something finer grained and also slower might be good. Removing her ability to regulate her emotions was one of the first things the Alliance did. It might be best to get that back step wise.

Also, though, River really fucking hates the Alliance and wants them out of her head, and maybe the healing's the type of thing that'd remove the Academy triggers since she's pretty sure those were added surgically and psychically rather than as a trained response.

"Sure. Healing's good."

She holds out her hand.

River takes it.

Boop!

...Suddenly having a functioning brain is really fucking weird. And no built up toxins in her system from the neurotransmitters her brain was spewing everywhere and the medications she's been trialed on and the pollution she's been around. She's glad she was already sitting half propped up.

River has her moments of clarity, points where her brain lines up and works close to how it used to.

This is well beyond those.

With the wish-granted sense of and control over her psychic powers -

She giggles.

"I can think clearly."

She's pretty sure she has projective telepathy, actually, she'd just never been able to access it - she sends Mal and Simon a 'hi the aliens healed my brain' and snorts when Mal jumps and curses and thinks 'more warning next time' at her.

Simon drops the thing he'd been fiddling with, then heads out of the medical room at a brisk walk. He's nervous. She refrains from sending her fondness at him.

She smiles at Golden. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. Anything else before I pop home?"

"I don't think so."

"Bye!"

She vanishes.