The first thing he hears is, "Jane Doe! Gun shot to the chest!"
He's just leaving the hospital, ready for his shift to be over after working an extra two hours into the night. So, at first, Simon Tam ignores his instinct to rush to the gurney careening through the doors in front of him, but then Corinne, one of the nurses who responds, takes one look at the wound and calls out to him.
"Dr Tam! We're going to need you on this!"
Promising himself and his sister that this patient will be the last, he jogs over and takes a look at the injured woman.
"Guai-guai long de dong! What idiot did this?"
He can tell it's the Alliance's handy-work, the tearing around the gaping wound indicating high-powered and long-range weaponry. He's seen enough evidence of it over the years to recognise it on sight.
He feels sorry for the woman – she probably won't last the night. He glances up to check if she's conscious and finds her gritting her teeth, eyes open and on him. The pain must be immense, but she's not making a sound.
Her eyes ask him whether she'll see another sunrise, and he has to wonder whether she's really this strong or just stubborn as a mule.
"We'll see," Simon replies.
He's learnt not to commit to patients and their health, because it doesn't matter how good the machines are that you try to fix them with or how advanced the technology you're using is, anyone can die.
She's rushed into surgery, and under his careful hands her wound is emptied of shards of broken glass and something that resembles buckshot.
Just what the hell had this woman gotten herself involved in?
Simon fixes up the wound as best he can, making sure that her lungs are still in tact. By some miracle they are, and her chances of making it through the next twenty-four hours have dramatically increased.
"It was largely superficial," he tells the assembled team outside of the OR, though he doesn't really see how having your ribs blown apart is 'largely superficial.' "She'll need to be under intense observation for the next few days."
Reconstructing her ribs had been easy, as had repairing a lot of the tissue surrounding them, but healing the rest is up to Jane Doe and the best medicines they can give her.
Simon makes sure to give detailed instructions of her care to the staff, and then checks in on her one last time before he goes home.
The woman, by some miracle, is awake after her heavy sedation, though groggy-looking, but she isn't alone.
Four armed soldiers stand at her bedside and one of them has the uniform of a Sergeant. Simon is instantly on alert, straightening his lab coat and scrubs.
"Officers."
The Sergeant – a tall, cut sort of man, with short dark hair and a carefully sculpted moustache – eyes Simon carefully, coming forward to check his badge, before nodding.
"Dr Tam, as this patient is under your care for the time being, I have to inform you that she is wanted for the murder of several Alliance soldiers and the destruction of two military skiffs. There are also charges pending for looting and intent to sell stolen property. I don't need to tell you how dangerous she is, do I?"
At this new information, Simon pales. "No, sir."
The man nods. "Good. My name is Sergeant Shaw, and I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of each other in the future. These men will stay with the patient at all times – no exceptions. We expect an escape attempt to be made."
"She's in no condition to be making any kind of escape–"
Shaw cuts in. "Yes, I read her chart. But I wasn't talking about her. The crew of her ship managed to escape the trade-off of illegal goods that we raided, and they will want their captain back, I imagine."
Simon looks over the heavily-armoured soldiers and their high-tech guns, and then observes the woman. She's young, about the same age as him, and it unnerves him that such a sweet-looking woman could kill so mainly highly-trained soldiers. She's in the standard issue hospital gown, but he remembers the destroyed clothes she had been wearing when she'd been brought in: a dark shirt and pants, with leather boots and a...a brown coat.
"Is she..."
Simon doesn't manage to get the question out, but Shaw sees his gaze resting on the pile of personal items they had cut from her in surgery to address her wound.
"Yes, one of the Independence, to be sure." Shaw lifts the long coat, turning it on his finger, and smiles a fraction. "And now we have her name. Thank you, Doctor." The Sergeant lifts his communicator to his mouth. "Control, we have an I.D. One, Mal Reynolds."
When he gets home, he knows he's beyond late, because there is no dinner on the table for him and River is nowhere in sight. Usually after a long shift, she keeps his dinner warm and falls asleep on the couch waiting for him. Tonight, his dinner rests in the refrigerator, and, upon checking, he sees she's fast asleep in her room.
Simon makes sure to keep quiet as he dims the lights throughout their apartment and pours himself a stiff drink.
Imagine, a criminal, in his ward. It's so strange to think just hours earlier he was fighting to save her life when she'd done all those disgusting things.
"Simon."
He nearly jumps as his sister makes an appearance, but after years of her doing something similar, ever since they were children, he manages to suppress his natural reaction.
"Hey, mei-mei."
"Long day?" She asks him, taking a seat beside him and drawing her legs up underneath herself.
He nods, drawing a hand over his face.
"You know, she probably had good reason to hurt them," River tells him, her dark gaze unwavering.
Simon gives her The Look. "I thought we agreed, no more digging around inside people's heads." Knowing she won't listen, he continues. "Anyway, what reason could she possibly have? She's a criminal. I may not agree with what the Alliance do sometimes, especially to the people that come through the hospital doors, but she killed people, River. There's no sense in killing."
"Maybe not in the way you see it, Simon," she says, whisper-soft. "But you don't know the whole story. Perhaps you should ask."
He shakes his head. "No, there's a guard around her, and, besides, it's not like I need to know, nor do I care. I'm just going to go get some sleep."
So he lifts himself from the couch and delivers himself to his room, before collapsing in rest for his next long shift tomorrow.
Unbeknownst to him, River keeps her seat on the couch, plucking at a loose thread on the pants of her pyjamas.
Sometimes, she gets images, like the one of her strapped to a chair in some steel room with needles in her brain, the one that stopped her from going off-planet to that school for the 'gifted'. She has an image now of a ship, stranded and mourning, and she knows the woman is innocent of her crimes.
She only needs to convince her brother of that, and River rolls her eyes, knowing his stubbornness is going to cause all sorts of problems for them. But she shouldn't die, the woman, because River knows she's needed.
The ship continues to drift through the black.
When Simon goes into St. Michael's the next day, the hospital is abuzz with news of their latest famous patient, or, should he say, infamous.
No one knew the details but him it seemed, and he realised this after listening in on a few conversations between nurses and doctors alike as he changed into his scrubs and cleaned up. Most people were merely speculating as to why she had an armed guard, and the possibilities ranged from Miss Mal Reynolds being a serial killer to her being a celebrity from another planet.
Simon kept his own counsel for the entirety of his shift, checking on recovering patients as well as assisting in a few minor surgeries, but for the rest of the day he could think of nothing else but the woman under his care who he had been told was a murderer.
By the end of the day, he knew he would have to check on her progress personally, as the nurses reported that they were not allowed into the room as often as they needed to be.
Sergeant Shaw greeted Simon as he went to see his patient. "Ah, Doctor. I have been meaning to speak to you. Your staff have been...enthusiastic in their attempts to see our charge, and have promptly been banned from her room. I trust you will be able to look after the girl yourself, as I'm sure you understand how much more convenient it is for only a select few to be allowed admittance to her room. It limits the possibility of infiltration."
"Of course," Simon told him. "I understand perfectly."
It just meant more work for him and more time spent in a killer's company, but, he supposed, he could be more perfunctory than usual.
"Apart from an emergency, of course," Shaw amends. "You'll need all the hands you can get in such an eventuality. She's not to be lost, you understand. We intend to make an example of her. Let me know the first available opportunity we have to...question her."
Simon once again speaks his understanding and is finally granted admittance to the room, where the woman is sleeping. The guard wait outside.
He checks her vitals, the healing of the wound, her reaction to the drugs, and her reflexive response times. As he's redressing her chest, he sees her eyes flutter open.
How can a murderer have such beautiful hazel eyes?
The thought is lost as soon as it registers, the straining noise of the cuffs binding her to the bed being pulled breaking him from his thoughts.
"Do you feel any pain?" He asks her in a monotone.
Her face twists in confusion, and then her eyes fully settle on him, her paled skin brightening a rosy fraction under his gaze. She's pretty, with those eyes and that delicate nose, but he knows she's deadly, so he keeps out of reach of her teeth and hands.
"Well?"
She makes a strangled noise before clearing her throat and shaking her head. "I... I feel like I'm floatin'..."
Simon thinks of cutting her dosage, so she feels some pain, but he can't bring himself to actually do it.
"Now you're conscious, I'm sure the men outside have some questions for you," he tells her, and then he sees clarity shine in her eyes.
She flinches as the door swings open across the room, Shaw stepping inside and his footfalls sounding loudly.
"Doctor," he says. "Is the woman clear for interrogation?"
Simon nods, putting away her chart, but still has to say, "Nothing too strenuous, of course."
The Sergeant flashes his teeth in a cold smile. "Of course."
River is upon him before he's even through the door of their home.
"So? Did you ask her?"
"Ask who what?" Simon frowns, shrugging off his coat and sitting down to the dinner River's made.
"The woman," she clarifies. "Did you ask her why she did it, if she did it?"
"No."
River halts as she pulls out the chair opposite him, where her place is set. "No?"
Simon looks up at her, brow creased. "No."
"But..."
He watches her as she stares at him, though he thinks it's not really him she's seeing.
"What is it, River?"
She looks pained. "I think... I think you're going to regret not asking...not...not helping."
"Helping with what?" Simon asks, but he doesn't receive an answer from her as she sits and begins to eat, eyes firmly away from his.
The next day when Simon goes in for his shift at St. Michael's, the hospital is suspiciously quiet. Oh, it's busy alright, with patients being wheeled left and right, and nurses going about their business, but everyone is subdued.
He spots Corinne at the front desk and goes to her. "Hey. What's going on?"
Her navy eyes flick left and right before they drop to the desk where she's filing away a few medical reports.
"We're not meant to know, Dr Tam, but...Evelyn did a blood test on that woman last night, like she should have. Evelyn was taken away, detained."
Simon can't believe it. "Detained? For what?"
"For what she found," Corinne hisses. "Keep your voice down. The report was meant to be destroyed but...well, we all got a good look at it before they took it."
"And?"
"Well...they've been using farapramazol on your patient."
He'd known that the Alliance, on more than one occasion, had used methods of coercion that were barbaric, but he didn't think that they still did.
Mal Reynolds might be a murderer and a criminal, but no one – no one –deserved to be administered that particular brand of poison. It affects nerve endings, inducing the ghost of pain, except it feels so very real and drives many mad.
Simon takes Corinne's lead as she guides him to the staff room, before making sure it's empty and promptly locking them both inside.
"I don't know who she is, but that woman is a brave soul," she tells him, worrying the beads around her neck. "She's still awake, saw her through the door, and she isn't crying so much now."
He feels a lead weight sink into his stomach. His okay for interrogation had done this. He hadn't known they would...that they would...but it was his name on the sign-off sheet, and it was his word that brought that woman so much pain.
"She..." Corinne swallows, her eyes looking wet. "She was crying for her mother. She wanted to see her before...before she died. She thought she was going to die, Dr Tam. You need to do something – the soldiers listen to you."
Simon pushes his hand through his hair. "Kao... They won't stop what they're doing! The Sergeant told me they're looking to make an example out of her, and...even if I help, I'm saving a guilty woman, a murderer."
Corinne glances out of the glass panel of the door. "You get ready for your shift, Dr Tam. They're bringing in the next round of guards for her now. You do what you would normally do, and then when you get to her you act like nothing's wrong but...you find something, alright? I can abide bad people being brought to justice, whatever that justice is, but I can't see suffering. Not after the war."
She unlocks the door and leaves and Simon finds a heavy weight around his shoulders.
Is this what River was trying to tell him?
It's the end of his shift, and he's checking in on the woman like he would have had he not known about the torture. The soldiers let him pass – one less of them than before – and Shaw is nowhere to be seen.
Simon closes the door behind him and sees she's sleeping, light though it is with her chest dropping and falling sharply beneath the sheets.
He makes sure the room's clean, remembering Shaw's words on the minimum amount of people being allowed in, and then checks Miss Reynolds' vitals. She's stable, but there's still the chance of her wound and her latest ordeal tipping her into a critical condition.
Simon would like to think that, had he not known about the farapramazol, he would have declared her unfit for questioning anyway, but he doubts himself harshly.
Her reflexes are shaken, her fingers twitch spasmodically, and her mouth is set in a constant grimace. Simon can't imagine what the pain felt like and what her nervous system is like now. He's surprised it's not completely shot.
A groan rises from the woman.
River's words ringing in his head, he decided to broach a subject or two, if she can speak.
"Miss Reynolds? Miss Mal Reynolds?"
"Captain..." She sighs, eyes half-opening. "Captain?"
"Yes, you're the captain," Simon tells her, sitting on the side of the bed and pretending to still be checking her over. "Can... Can you tell me what happened?"
Her eyelids flutter and then remain closed. "Captain... I just...I just wanted to get some of those...those strawberries we saw...but I think...the boy ratted us out. He...he followed. And then...then Zoe... Oh, gosh, Captain... Zoe...she... I...I shoulda never come here... Those girls...you shoulda met those girls... I don't care if...if they ain't seen dealt with a man in a four-score...you...you shoulda...and now Zoe...she's hurt... Didya find her, Captain? Didya?"
Frowning, Simon pats her hand. "I'm sure she's alright, Miss Reynolds."
"If she ain't...Wash is...Wash is gonna skin me alive..."
He glances over at her clothes – the coat, the shoes – and he wonders if...if maybe, with the words and the snippets of her story and...well, maybe she isn't Miss Mal Reynolds and maybe she's not the captain of a ship...and maybe there are other things they have wrong about her.
"What's your name?" Simon asks.
"You should...know my name, Captain. Y-you hired me. You said...you said did I want a job and I-I said, yessir she's a mighty fine ship...just...just needs a bit of tweaking and she'll...fly straight and true, she will. And then y-you said, well Missy Frye you get down in that engine...a-and do some work..."
"You're an engineer?"
The woman smiles, wide and wobbly. "Always teasin' me about that ain'tcha, Captain? Al-always sayin' I shoulda been a farmer's wife or a C-Corn Queen...not a little g-grease monkey flyin' through the b-black. Al-always sayin', Kaylee you get outta that shuttle an-and leave Inara alone...she don't wanna be brushin' your hair all hours of the day..."
"That's your name?" Simon leans in. "Kaylee?"
"'Course it is..."
She's dozing, he can tell, and her twitching is lessening. He stands, letting her get some rest, and marks up her chart, making it obvious to anyone who looks at it that no more 'questioning' is allowed in her condition. He makes sure the tubing is neat and that there's enough in the drip to keep feeding her until his next shift, in case any other nurses are 'detained' for keeping a patient alive.
As Simon leaves, he looks each guard in the eye behind their visors. "She's in no state for visitors or questioning today."
They nod imperceptibly and Simon leaves, hoping when he returns tomorrow that she'll still be in one piece.
The next day is trying, because not only has River insisted he make friends with the woman under his care but Shaw has also returned to St. Michael's and is eager to speak with him.
Simon meets him near the end of his shift outside of Kaylee's room.
The Sergeant's moustache twitches a fraction. "My men tell me that you have disallowed any further questioning."
"That's right," Simon tells him. "I noticed a distinct drop in her health yesterday and thought that anything strenuous should be held off – just until she gets better, of course."
Shaw's dark eyes scan him. "I trust, Dr Tam, that you don't listen to idle the chit-chat and gossip passing through these halls."
Simon controls his expression. "No, sir. I am merely looking after the woman put into my care. If she can't answer your questions, what use is she to you? I'm just doing my job so you can deal justice to these kinds of criminals."
Shaw looks mildly appeased, and lets Simon pass into the room, past the guards.
"I appreciate your dedication, Doctor," the man tells him. "But I have decided to ignore your recommendation and continue in our current line of questioning."
Simon stops at the end of the bed, blood turning cold. "Ignore?"
"Yes." Shaw nods. "I felt that we were finally getting somewhere when we were...forced to stop. I cannot allow any accessories to the fact escape without punishment."
His mind races. If this woman is innocent then he has to do everything in his power to protect her – River had said something similar last night – and Simon could never ignore doing the right thing.
So he straightens his back and holds his head up tall. "I'm afraid, as her doctor, I can't allow it."
Shaw's smile is cold. "Yes, I thought you might say something along those lines, so I had the pleasure of having this drawn up." He passes him a leather-bound document. "This document reads that I am now in charge of how this patient is treated medically, including any and all administering of drugs that I see fit. You, Dr Tam, have been replaced as this woman's doctor. Dr Benson has agreed to take over and carry out my instructions to the letter."
The girl, Kaylee – he can hardly think of her as a woman anymore, not after hearing her crying for her mother – is administered farapramazol by Dr Benson's own hand, in increasing doses.
The only reason he knows this is because he has been keeping a much closer eye on proceedings and the young, malleable doctor that has taken over as Kaylee's physician. He has been banned from the room like the rest of the staff, but has heard Dr Benson's bragging about bringing a criminal to justice from down the hall.
He talks too much, especially to the nurses, and Simon has no idea why Shaw chose the relatively new doctor except for the obvious fact that he is simply not bothered by torturing a patient under his care. Simon thinks Dr Benson assumes that by doing this the Alliance will improve his position in the hospital, but he knows that isn't the case – the Alliance, he now sees, do everything for their own purposes.
The entire hospital knows what is going on, but only Corinne seems to be aware of Simon's plight. His Oath is nothing but dust to the wind now, and every time Kaylee is hurt he knows it is his fault. Even if he is not the one pressing the trigger on the syringe, he has done nothing to stop it from happening.
What can he do? He doesn't know. But he does know he hasn't tried.
Shaw's interrogation is unrelenting, and yet it seems Kaylee doesn't say a word as she is continuously being treated with the poison. Simon wonders if she has repeated the things she told him, but he doubts it – wouldn't Shaw have stopped by now if she had?
A part of him is awed by her loyalty and her resilience, while the rest of him just wants her to give in every time he passes by her room.
The end of the first week comes with no relief whatsoever, as Simon is told by Corinne that Kaylee's treatment is becoming even more barbaric. The dark-skinned nurse had seen machines being wheeled into Kaylee's hospital room, and not the healing kind.
River doesn't speak to him anymore. He assumes this is because he has been pathetically indecisive and weak about helping the poor woman previously under his care. She prefers to eat alone in her room and travel to the Academy she attends on Osiris by herself.
The second week destroys anything good left that Simon had believed about the Alliance – they are now the ultimate evil to him, beyond that even of the ghost tales of Reavers.
As he passes by her room late on the Friday, he sees the guards are on the inside instead of at their usual post by the door, watching the spectacle unfolding on the bed, giving him the chance to see it for himself over their shoulders. Simon sees Benson next to Shaw, injecting a bright yellow drug directly into Kaylee's bloodstream. It turns out to be something he's never seen before, suffocating Kaylee from the inside until she's choking on nothing and breathlessly begging for air, pulling at the restraints holding her down and making the guards point and comment as she tears her dirty, hospital gown.
It's the final straw.
He looks haggard as he staggers to the bathroom and glances in the mirror. He's drawn and sickly-looking, and he hasn't gotten an inch of sleep in more than two days.
Simon sees River pass by the open door behind him as he washes his face. He exits the bathroom to see her standing by the open front door, barefoot.
"Where are you going?"
She continues to look out at the gardens and buzzing city beyond their walls. "Nowhere. I'm just seeing how she is. She's so weak now, I can barely hear her. She's hungry, and tired."
Simon stands in the cold morning light, watching his sister 'listen' to a half-dead woman across the city and wondering how he can ever make things right again.
His answer comes three hours later when, walking to St. Michael's, he overhears a growled conversation down one of the side-streets he's passing.
"Listen, ain't no way in the 'verse Zoe can't get in there. She's good at this. Kaylee's as good as ours again."
Simon tugs the collar of his coat up to his ears and turns slightly, looking down the street to see two broad-shouldered men hashing something out between them. One, who Simon immediately doesn't like the look of, pulls back his jacket and palms the handgun at his hip.
"Come on, Mal," he practically whines. "I ain't shot this here gun since Whitefall."
"Yeah, and that itchy trigger's gonna get me some hella trouble, ain't it, Jayne?"
"Naw, you're just sore over that woman back on that last moon."
"Hey! She was coming on to me before she even saw you!"
There could be thousands of people called Mal and Zoe and Kaylee, and even more people having conversations about them, but the coincidence is too big for Simon to resist.
He walks up behind them, light-footed and cautious. "Excuse me–"
The more muscular of the two men, Jayne, is instantly on the offensive and Simon is faced, for the first time in his life, with the barrel of a gun. The man's blue eyes are narrowed, and his teeth are bared at Simon even as he chews on a plastic toothpick.
The other man, Mal, steps in, his short brown coat swishing between Simon and Jayne, the man he would never turn his back on in a million years.
"Hold up, Jayne. I'm sure this fancy-pants gentleman here just needs some directions. Put the gun down, now." Mal turns to him. "Better skedaddle if you wanna keep that pretty hair of yours on your head, mister. Jayne, here, he don't take kindly to surprises. Of any sort. Not even on his birthday. Sad, ain't it?"
Simon frowns at the two, even as Jayne reluctantly lowers the handgun. "I... I have some information. I couldn't help but overhear what you two were talking about–"
He is instantly faced with the barrel of a gun again.
"Gorram, Mal, he knows. Let's jus' kill 'im now and then get on with the plan."
Simon raises his hands in an age-old sign of surrender and looks the obviously more mentally stable of the two dark-haired men in the eyes.
"Listen to me," Simon stresses. "I know who you are. You're a captain, trading in illegal goods–"
"Y'ain't exactly warming me to not letting Jayne shoot you right now," the man interrupts.
"Listen. You're Mal Reynolds, and one of your crew, Zoe, got injured in a recent trade-off involving another woman, and...and Wash! That's it, Wash – he's involved with her somehow because he'd be upset she was hurt." Simon knows he's breathing harshly, and the gun pressed to his forehead has everything to do with it. "I know these things because I've talked to her, the girl you're looking for. I'm a doctor, at the hospital, and I took care of her when she first came in."
Mal pushes down the barrel of Jayne's gun and gives Simon a long, slow smile. "Jayne, I reckon we mighta just found our miracle."
Simon has never seen such a ragtag team of misfits.
After speaking his piece, he'd been dragged down the street and into a back-alley house with a plain, unobtrusive door. Inside, however, is another matter, as guns and explosives are strewn over every surface in the small holding.
He stands with a hand gripping his shoulder, staring at a dark-skinned woman with a riot of black curls tumbling over her shoulders and a crudely-wrapped bandage around her midsection. Her gaze is shrewd and all-seeing.
"Captain?" She questions, looking somewhere over Simon's shoulder.
"Now." Mal steps forward. "I know he don't look like much, but ain't you always tellin' me it's what's on the inside that counts?"
"His insides look like Alliance to me," she grits out, cocking the large shotgun in her hands.
"I'm not Alliance," Simon says fiercely, shrugging off Jayne's hand on his shoulder. "I'm a doctor. At St. Michael's."
"Sounds like Alliance to me," she says, cocking her head.
A thin, pale sort of man suddenly enters the weapon-laden room through a side door. His hair is as loud as his shirt, and he looks at the woman in front of Simon with an obvious relish.
"Honey," he drawls. "What did we say about threatening strange men?"
Her lip curls. "They don't appreciate it."
"That's right."
Simon looks back at the captain of this crew. "Who are you people?"
Mal smiles. "Doc. We're the rescue team. Now tell us what's going on with my little grease-monkey."
Simon has filled in the crew of Serenity – they had done a little story-telling themselves – on the details of Kaylee's situation, both medical and judicial.
Their rage and misery had far surmounted anything Simon had ever seen when he'd been obliged to tell them of her torture. He'd also told them about his original standing, as her doctor, before being removed, and how that might afford him a little leeway into getting into her room, providing Shaw wasn't there.
Their plan had originally been to go in with Zoe – the gun-toting Amazonian woman – as a patient and then sneak into Kaylee's room and then make a break from the hospital. Simon's news put the kibosh on that whole harebrained scheme, but it did give them a better chance of getting her out of there.
So here he is, entering St. Michael's at his normal pace, trying to make it seem normal to be so late in to work. Corinne is instantly on him at the desk.
"Where have you been, Dr Tam? We needed you. Kelly stepped in for you, but...your patient, they've left her in a terrible state."
Simon nods to her. "I'll go check on her right now."
So far, it's all going to plan. But as he takes the corridors at a quick stride and reaches Kaylee's room, he sees they're not going to be so lucky with the Shaw situation.
Simon steps into a dark and empty patient's room, his back flush against the door to avoid being seen. He can hear Shaw and Benson just down the hall.
"She's close," Shaw says. "We nearly have her. She was talking about her ship. We need to step this up again."
Benson sounds nervous. "With all due respect, sir, doing that just might kill her in this condition."
At least the man isn't without some integrity, Simon thinks.
"Do you want to be promoted, Doctor?"
Benson says nothing. He hears them begin to walk down the hall, towards him. They're quiet, but he can hear snatches of monitor her and I'll be back with the equipment.
They walk past the room, completely oblivious to his presence, and turn the corner of the hall. Simon breathes a short sigh of relief that the plan still might work.
He's about to leave the room he's in and attempt to get the guards at Kaylee's door to allow him admittance, when his comms pager vibrates in the pocket of his lab coat.
Simon takes out his pager with a raised eyebrow, wondering why River would be trying to contact him during the day. He had originally bought it in case she ever got into trouble with her gift and needed a way to contact him. The pager isn't impossible to trace, but the encrypted messages sent to it are.
The words scrolling across the dim screen make him roll his eyes.
In Serenity, it reads. Leaving without me? They won't believe you. Duck.
He pushes it back deep into his pocket and leaves the room, striding up the corridor with purpose. He trusts his sister to the edge of the universe, and beyond. She always was smarter than him.
The guards eye him as he comes to stand at Kaylee's door. There are only two of them today – a mistake on Shaw's part.
"Dr Benson wanted me to bring the patient a sedative," Simon tells them, flashing the medi-gun.
The two men are immediately on alert, and before Simon can truly remember River's advice, he ducks and misses the butt of the gun aimed for his head. It strikes the guard's counterpart out cold and Simon manages to inject the other guard in the confusion.
They both fall heavily, their gear creating a lot of noise, and Simon gets on with the plan before he gets caught. Inside the room, he sees what they've truly done to Kaylee.
One machine against the wall is meant for patients with a poisoned bloodstream, to cycle the toxin out and put clean blood back into the body. It's obvious this is one of the torture devices.
Simon tries to ignore the spent vials of farapramazol strewn across a small medical tray, and all the other gleaming torture devices in the room.
Kaylee is ashen, her breathing irregular, and upon checking her pulse, Simon finds her heart is hardly beating at all. He releases her bound wrists, rubbed bloody from the times she's pulled at her restraints in agony, and unlatches all the other straps as well.
He puts her in the regulation wheelchair in every patient's room and throws her belongings on her lap, before wheeling her from the room as quickly as possible. He meets only one obstacle on the way, apart from the unconscious guards lying across the hallway: Dr Benson.
Simon sees the toll the torture has taken on him like he hasn't before – the man is dead on his feet, and he almost feels sorry for him. Except Kaylee is there between them, unwashed and bloody, with dried vomit on her gown, and Simon's heart hardens.
The other doctor stands there, indecisive, his gaze wavering, but Simon doesn't wait for the man to do the right or wrong thing, he simply pushes past, heading for the emergency back exit.
He grabs a few things on his way, things he knows the crew of Serenity do not have, like medicine and equipment to treat Kaylee, and rushes through the hallways, snatching what he can.
Simon turns a corner quickly, wheelchair squeaking as Kaylee slumps to the side, and his breath rushes out of him when he spies the open exit doors, Mal waving at him to hurry as the captain keeps a level gun on someone outside.
When Simon exits, he sees Shaw, pressed against the white wall of the hospital, hands raised and eyes narrowed with fury.
Simon ignores the Sergeant's words towards him and rushes Kaylee towards the shuttle waiting for them. He puts Kaylee in Jayne's hands, the man picking her straight out of the wheelchair and taking her onto the readied craft. Simon shoves the chair inside the shuttle, before turning to Mal and indicating to Shaw.
"He's the one."
Mal's expression changes so quickly to brutal coldness. He flips the gun in his hand and whips Shaw in the temple with the butt of it. The Sergeant falls to the ground, out-cold, bleeding, and Mal gives him a kick to the stomach for good measure.
He strides over to Simon and pushes him into the shuttle, before climbing in after him. He motions to Wash to get the thing airborne.
"Why ain't he dead?" Jayne asks Mal, teeth bared and muscles flexing.
Simon goes to see to Kaylee, who's strapped into one of the battered seats, one of her legs at an awkward angle. Simon checks her over, knowing his work's cut out for him, and finds swelling on her ankle he hadn't seen in the hospital room.
"Her ankle might be broken," he says out loud, gently touching the bruised skin.
He hears the captain growl back at Jayne, "I wish by God he was."
The plan, though quickly formulated and poorly executed, has gone without a hitch, Wash taking them back to Serenity at one of the ports nearby and Zoe following them up in a smaller craft to make sure they haven't been tailed by anyone but her.
When Simon reaches Serenity, he finds it to be an old class of spaceship, not really suitable – in his opinion – to sustain any form of life, let alone human, but he knows this is where these people live, and he has better manners to insult a person's home. Even if it is a load of le-se.
River is with a woman as the bay doors open to admit the hurrying crew and Simon pushing Kaylee in the wheelchair. His sister throws her arms around him and mutters something about being so glad to see him, which instantly puts him at ease in this foreign place. If River feels safe here, then he does too.
The woman next to her smiles at him and tips her head regally, and from the beautiful gown she's wearing to the golden headdress gracing her black curls, Simon instantly recognises her as a Companion. Though what she's doing on this ship is anyone's guess.
His priority is Kaylee.
"Are there any medical facilities on this ship?" He asks, and Mal points him to the door at the end of the bay.
"Infirmary's just through there."
He takes Kaylee up in his arms and slings the medical supplies he'd stolen over his shoulder in his case. River follows, unasked.
Simon works on Kaylee through the day in the Firefly's medi-bay. It's a sorry excuse for an infirmary – bloody bullets in boxes and bandages everywhere – but there's a flat-bed chair to work with, and it's relatively clean.
He can't help but think that they need a ship's doctor, but that isn't on the cards for him. When they had made their plans to rescue Kaylee, Simon had agreed to care for her until she was well enough to return to her place in the crew full-time. He and his sister would then be dropped off at a place of their choosing.
"I know you loved the Academy," Simon tells River, as he works on an injury to Kaylee's shoulder and his sister watches from where she's perched on the worktop next to him.
She scoffs. "Simon, please. This is much more important than that. You don't know how much, yet, but you will."
He just shakes his head at her. "Still. You could always go see mom and dad, if you don't want to be here."
"No," River says. "They're safe where they are, they don't know anything. Besides, I like it here." She strokes the steel worktop with her thumb. "It's nice."
Simon eats his share of the meal tentatively, mind still on Kaylee's first night away from St. Michael's and her tormentors. He wonders when she'll wake up, and hopes, when she does, that she won't be as mentally scarred as he think she will.
Everyone's subdued, eating quietly, but Jayne is eyeing River with a fierce expression as he tears into a bread roll. River is watching him carefully.
Mal seems to notice too. "Jayne?"
"I understand the doc," he says suddenly. "But why's this little thing here? Ain't we got enough mouths to feed?"
"If I stay, River stays," Simon says, looking the man in the eye.
Mal smiles at Jayne from down the end of the table. "And we kinda need him to stay, don't we, Jayne?"
The man grumbles and goes back to his food. Simon decides since the quiet's already been broken, he can broach something else.
"Uh, Zoe?"
Her head shoots up, as does Wash's. Simon glances at the wrappings around her middle.
"I can take a look at that, if you want. I've brought some things that might help."
She nods, going back to her dinner. Wash mouths thank you.
Unpacking had been easy, considering how little he and River had been able to bring on their sudden one-way trip from Osiris, but sitting in his new quarters for the foreseeable becomes difficult.
He finds himself thinking about Kaylee in the quiet, how he's given up everything he's worked for – his life, his career, his happiness – to do some good by saving an innocent woman. It's difficult to rationalise it to himself, saving her, because he knows she is innocent, but the rest of the crew is not. Those Alliance men were killed by someone, and it isn't hard to guess that Jayne's the hothead around here when it comes to firing bullets.
A knock to his door brings him from his thoughts. It slides aside to reveal River.
He gives her a half-smile and pats the side of his bed. "Can't sleep?"
She shrugs. "New place."
He nods. He knows all about her gift, how she has to acclimatise to different 'voices' in new places, and he squeezes her hand to comfort her as she comes to sit on the bed.
"What about you?" River asks.
Simon sighs. "I can't... I know I did the right thing by saving her from that torture, River, but...these people are not good people."
She smiles, her dark eyes shining. "You always did find it difficult to see the world in shades of grey. They might not be 'good' people, Simon. But they're honest. When can you say the Alliance has ever been honest?"
"I suppose," he says softly. "I wouldn't have been able to live and work like that any more anyway. Not now I know how they really treat people. It's...barbaric. I just don't know what we'll do after this."
River pats his hand and stands to leave. "You'll see. It'll all turn out shiny."
"Shiny?"
"Don't you like it?" River grins as she steps outside of his quarters, starting to slide the door shut. "I heard the captain say it. Shiny..."
Simon sits up. "Wait. What about you? I thought you couldn't sleep?"
"You were the one keeping me up," she tells him. "Night."
Over two weeks, Kaylee's condition has vastly improved. Despite the lack of technology and the stinginess Simon's had to enforce when it comes to using drugs, considering the lack of them, it's all going rather well.
She has lucid points and bad patches, like any patient, but her memory seems to be intact, as evidenced by the fact that she'll wake up for Mal at any time and tell him, without pause, whatever he needs to know about how to keep Serenity running smoothly.
The late nights and early mornings, primitive blood tests and tentative mental health questions, are all part of his job as a doctor, but the enjoyment he takes from seeing Kaylee improving is his own personal pleasure. It makes him happy to help others – it's his life's work – but it is not part of his job to talk to her, to enjoy talking to her, or to find her unabashedly attractive.
It's hard for Simon to talk to any woman outside of his job or family in a more than brusque manner, but with Kaylee he finds himself sucked in to the most interesting conversations, making more than small talk, and he always finds himself laughing by the end of it.
She...entrances him, from her hazel eyes to the overalls with a teddy stitched to one pant leg that she insisted on wearing before she was fully conscious. Inara, the Companion, was the one who kept Kaylee clean and dressed, and she had been the one Kaylee had gone to when she'd started taking in more of her surroundings.
Simon hadn't meant to overhear their words those few days ago from behind the half-open door of the infirmary, the two women hashing something out in hushed voices. Kaylee had asked Inara to get her different clothes to change into, more 'grown-up' ones, and when Inara had questioned why, Kaylee had told her she didn't want to look like a little girl.
It had bothered Simon for some time, because he found those overalls endearing, but he has since realised that she doesn't want him to think of her as a little girl, and the reason why is something that makes him smile when he thinks about it.
Does she feel the same?
It's hard living on a ship where engine parts break every day, and there's always some new 'job' that means one of the crew comes to him with a bullet stuck in their body, but Kaylee makes it bearable, and as he finds it bearable, he also begins to find it...homely.
From the painted girders in the mess, to the lights he's seen tangled around Kaylee's quarters, he realises that the ship is a home to many, and that he doesn't find it so distasteful as he once did.
He likes it, he realises, and he knows River does too.
"We're all on the run, Doc," Mal tells him shortly. "Some of us more than others."
They're hashing out how long Simon and River are going to stay now Kaylee is well on her way to being herself again. Torture, apparently, has nothing on Kaylee Frye. The woman's more resilient than anything in the 'verse.
She's already been sleeping in her own quarters rather than the infirmary, and she's been able to get herself to and from the engine room, where she tends to spend most of her time anyway.
Simon frowns at the captain. "What does that have to do with it?"
"I'm just sayin' – we're all in the same boat here." Mal leans against the dining table behind him, arms crossed. "None of us want to tangle with the Alliance, and...maybe it ain't such a good idea – for any of us – to set you down just yet."
Simon wants to smile. "Are you...saying we can stay?"
The captain shrugs. "I'm sayin' we're in sore need of a doctor and you shouldn't stay in one place too long – Serenity's just the thing for a man in your position."
Simon thinks about his sister, the friends she's made in the women on the ship and some of the men, and then he thinks about Kaylee, how he can't be sure he actually wants to leave her.
"It's been two months," Mal tells him. "You gotta be sure of her by now?"
"Her?" Simon asks, ears growing hot.
The captain eyes him with a strange look. "Serenity?"
"Oh." Simon shakes his head. "Of course. I just...need to talk it over with my sister."
It turns out River has already given her answer to Mal in the affirmative, and so it just leaves Simon, unsure of himself and where he stands with Kaylee.
They have dinner. He pulls out Kaylee's chair for her as he has been doing every meal for the past two weeks, and she thanks him with that strange, glowing smile that has his chest contracting pleasantly. They talk over the table, the conversation is no longer stilted as it had once been only a month ago, and Jayne tells a tale which they all know is rather tall but entertains them anyway.
When they're finished, and the crew goes to work, River helping Wash with some problem on the bridge, it leaves Inara and Simon to wash the dishes. It's easy to be with Inara – she's intelligent and lively, but most of all she understands where he comes from and how hard it had been for him to fit into such a crew as theirs.
"I have something to ask you," he manages to pluck up the courage to say, and she gives him a gentle smile.
"Go ahead."
Simon clears his throat. "I was wondering...well, what does it take... I mean, how does one...let someone know that...one...likes them?"
She grins as she scrubs the dishes and hands them to Simon to dry. She puts him at ease.
"There are always men," she tells him, "that are too forceful in seeking a woman's attentions, and then there are those that aren't forceful enough." She looks up. "My advice to you would be to be genuine and honest in your pursuit. There's no point hiding because of what might happen when nothing will happen if you don't do anything about it. Understand?"
He stares at her for a moment. "Yes. Thank you."
She leans in a kisses him on the cheek. "Good. Now, go to her."
Simon smiles and looks down bashfully, but before he can thank her again and then go to find Kaylee, the woman herself tumbles in through the door.
She swears, blushing, her eyes averted from the both of them. "Sorry! Uh..."
Inara turns, frowning. "Kaylee–"
Kaylee shakes her head, gaze firmly fixed on the floor, and stumbles back out of the room. Inara pushes him after her urgently.
"Go on!" She says. "She obviously thinks the worst! Go on!"
Simon, confused, darts after her, and catches her in the corridor leading towards the engine room, reaching for her arm. She jerks to a stop at his touch.
"Kaylee–"
"I'm sorry," she mutters. "I didn't mean to be intrudin'."
Simon touches her arm and she reluctantly turns to him, fiddling with the long tie of her shirt. It's a pretty thing, light and pink, and even though she's wearing her teddy overalls, tied at her waist, it's just so her that he can't help but think it perfect and adorable.
"You weren't," Simon replies. "I was just asking Inara something...and there's something I want to ask you."
Kaylee glances up at him sceptically. "Go on, then."
"Well, River is going to stay aboard, as part of the crew, and I was wondering whether...you would want me to stay?"
His heart hammers in his chest as Kaylee bites her lip, obviously confused.
"Because I'm your patient?" She asks, and Simon barely manages to shake his head.
"Uh...no. Because...because I want to stay. For you."
Her eyes widen. "I thought you were just kissin' on Inara!"
"What? No. She...she kissed my cheek, that's all. She was just giving me some advice."
Kaylee's eyes seem to widen impossibly further. "Wait...so, you...want to stay here, on Serenity, and we can...you know, have sex? Like...on a regular basis?"
Simon laughs, but he also has to clear the air – genuine and honest, Inara had said. "I want it to be more than...physical."
"Lord, yes," Kaylee breathes, before launching herself at him.
There's a dull thud as he hits the wall, Kaylee wrapping herself around him like a sea creature, but he can hardly care. She's just given him everything he wants.
Her kiss is soft and fierce, and even though he's not so very innocent in the ways of women he has never had a kiss that fills him with so much passion as hers does.
Simon groans and pulls back a fraction, breaking the kiss and whispering in the comingling of breath between their mouths. "Can we...go somewhere?"
Kaylee's eyes are heavily lidded and darkened to the nth degree. "Mine. I wan'it to be in my bed."
He has no argument to the contrary. Her room is the most pleasant place on the ship for him.