Disclaimer: Joss is Boss. I own nothing.

Simon hadn't left Kaylee's bunk since the accident. River was frantic. She had been on the mend, since Miranda, but the accident... well her mental state was deteriorating rapidly. Perhaps, a voice in the back of his mind nagged, her deteriorating status was his fault. Even so, Simon could not pull himself together enough to care.

He blamed her, he hated himself for it, but he couldn't change it. He blamed River for Kaylee's death, and for all the time that he wasted. He gave up everything for River; his life, his place in the world, everything he had ever known, and now the person who made it seem like he hadn't really lost anything at all. The thing he could not seem to move past, was that Kaylee didn't have to die. If he hadn't been too busy taking care of River, he would not have left the ship. He would have been there when she was shot. He would have...could have saved her. For the first time his medicine brought him no comfort, it caused pain not relief. His top three percent brain knew when he saw her how she spent her last moments. The pain...

If there was a god or a higher being, it had a sick sense of humor, and Simon could not worship him. Why? Why Kaylee? After everything that he had gone through and sacrificed why would god take more from him?

Simon slugged down more of Kaylee's engine brew. He couldn't think about it, wouldn't think about it.

Somewhere up above the feminine screaming abruptly stopped. The silence was deafening, the screaming had gone on so long that it had no longer registered in Simon's brain, but the silence shocked him out of his reverie. Instinctively he reached for the ladder to do his duty as the ships medic. He heard the low murmurs of the captain or Jayne and stopped to listen. Jayne had sedated River. His mei-mei was fine, she would live, unlike Kaylee. He recoiled physically from the thought and turned back to Kaylee's bunk, and poured himself another drink.