"Simon?"
Simon Tam, a very skilled surgeon from Osiris, looked around for the source of his name. He had been traveling on a Firefly class transport ship called Serenity for the past three years, had been to many planets and worlds during that time, and had no reason to believe anyone on Londinum would recognise him.
He saw the woman as she a combination of a skip, hop and run to him. She seemed somewhat familiar. "Simon Tam," she said, smiling happily, hands on her hips. "It is you. God almighty, I haven't seen you in years!" She threw her arms around his shoulders and gave him a tight hug. "How the hell are you?"
The doctor stared at this woman who had shown affection for him in a very public manner. Sher certainly seemed familiar, but he couldn't put a name to her face. He felt like he had possibly met her on Osiris, before he stole his sister back from the Alliance. "I'm-I'm sorry," he said politely. "Who are you?"
She smiled and laughed a little. "Simon, it's me, Idgie," she said, looking up at him imploringly. "Imogen Black." Simon felt all the blood drain from his face. He finally recognised her. She was a toxicology student at the hospital he worked in on Osiris. They had even dated for a while. Until she disappeared, that is. "You used to call me 'Sparky'?" she tried again, brushing her platinum blonde hair out of her eyes. Simon still didn't respond; he couldn't believe she was standing in front of him. "Gorram it, Simon! I know we haven't seen each other in five years, but we dated for three! I didn't think I would be so easily forgotten."
"No! Nothing like that, Idg," he said quickly. "I remember you. It just took me a moment to recognise you. I thought you were dead." He sighed and pulled her to him for another hug. This one of relief that she was still alive.
She shook her head when he released her. "Not dead, just... gone, I suppose," she said, shrugging. "I had to leave. I'm sorry I did without speaking to you about it. I've been flying on the Exodus since."
Simon thought back to his time on Osiris. "Your parents never waved me about your disappearance and I never contacted the feds to have them search for you because of their lack of concern," he told her. "Does your family still think you're on Osiris?"
After a moment's hesitation, she nodded. "They think I'm studying surgery now," she said.
"Guay Toh Guay Nown," Simon muttered, glancing skyward. "You're scamming your own parents. Kuh Wu."
Idgie glared at him. "Chui Se," she spat at him.
"Nah Mei Guan Shu," Simon replied.
"Imogen Black?" Simon and Idgie turned to see an Alliance officer approaching them quickly. "Your parents would like to see you."
She shot Simon a panicked look. He grabbed her hand and said, "Run!" Then he began running through the Londinum market, away from the officer, pulling Idgie behind him.
"As much as I appreciate the effort, Simon," she gasped, "but why are you helping me to escape?"
Simon glanced back at her. "Let's just leave it at I know you're hiding something that should probably stay hidden," he said, taking a sharp turn toward the docks. "And I find it's never a good thing to be that close to the feds under any circumstance."
"Does that have anything to do with warrants for your arrest popping up on the Cortex?" she asked as he hauled her on board Serenity and pulled her to the hidden cargo holds in the bay.
He opened one and looked up at her. "We'll talk about that later," he said. "Right now, we need to stow you away until we break atmo." Idgie pointed to the hold, silently asking if she had to hide in it. "Please." Without any fuss or complaint, Idgie crawled inside. Simon replaced the grille covering and had gotten himself settled on a stack of crates just as the rest of the crew boarded. "Hey," he said, smiling at Kaylee, the ship's extremely talented mechanic and his sweetheart. "Did you have fun?" Kaylee had taken his sister, River, to a park while the others resupplied.
"Did we ever," Kaylee said, ever cheerful. "River caught a squirrel." She placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. The kiss made him feel slightly guilty for hiding his past girlfriend on board. "But don't worry; didn't bite her and she let it go."
"Glad to hear it," Simon laughed. River silently left the cargo bay and walked away toward her room. Simon watched her, hoping to someday help her settle her constantly rattling nerves.
The Captain, Malcolm Reynolds, was a solemn man with a somewhat twisted sense of humour, who never took kindly to docking at Core Planets, such as Londinum, unless it was necessary. He boarded swiftly, hit the comm to the bridge and said, "Tick, we're on. Get us out of the world. Docks are crawlin' with feds."
"Right-o, Capitan," Richard Ticker, the crew's newest pilot responded over the comm. "Breaking atmo in one minute." The ship broke away from the floating docks and launched toward the black. "Leaving atmo, Captain. Setting course for Persephone."
Mal sighed. "Right," he said. "Jayne, get that cargo stowed before Alliance tries to stop us. Don't need no illegal goods foulin' up my bay if they do." He glanced at the others. "Don't the rest of you have work that needs doin'?"
"Go Neong Yung Duh!" Jayne, a large and perhaps not entirely bright man, said loudly. Simon winced as the mercenary dragged Idgie out of the hold by her collar. "Looks like we got ourselves a stowaway!" Jayne looked her up and down with a fair amount of lust in his eyes.
"Who the hell are you?" Mal demanded, crossing to them. "And what are you doin' on my boat?"
Idgie tried freeing herself from Jayne's grip. It didn't work. "My name is Dr. Imogen Sparks," she said. "And, honestly, I don't know what I'm doing on board your ship, Captain. Unhand me." She glared at Jayne and he quickly released her. "Said frankly, Captain, I was dragged aboard and shoved into your smuggling hold." She turned to look pointedly at Simon.
The rest of the crew stared at the surgeon, who looked slightly sheepish and uncomfortable. Mal looked annoyed. "You tried to smuggle a-I'm sorry, did you say you were a doctor?" Mal had suddenly addressed Idgie mid-sentence, who nodded. "Of what?"
"Toxicology," she said. She clarified when she saw their confusion. "Poisons. But I'm also skilled in basic surgery. Bullet removal, stitches, that sort of thing."
"What's going on?" They all turned to see Inara, an intoxicatingly beautiful Companion, on the catwalk, looking down at them with interest. "Idgie?" she said when her eyes landed on the toxicologist. "What are you doing here?"
Idgie grinned and she ran up the stairs to Inara, taking them two at a time before throwing her arms around the Companion in a hug. Simon didn't recall Idgie being quite so affectionate. "It's been far too long," Idgie said.
"It has," Inara agreed. She glanced at the crew before speaking quietly to Idgie for a little while as the crew watched with interest. Afterwards, Inara looked down at Mal and said, "You're going to let Idgie stay."
"Am I?" he laughed. "Just how much about this Nyen Ching Duh do you know anyway?" Inara didn't answer. "Doc?"
Simon sighed with everyone's eyes upon him. "She's an excellent doctor," he said. "She completed her residency under me--"
"That all she did under you?" Jayne said, smirking.
"Oy!" Idgie said sharply.
Mal gestured for Simon to continue. "She's an excellent doctor," he repeated. "But at times, she can be difficult."
Idgie quickly ran halfway down the stairs, protesting his comment, "I'm difficult? I'm sorry for asking questions while the rest of your students stared at you with slack-jawed idiocy. I'm sorry if I wanted to actually learn."
"That's... That's not what I meant, Idg."
"Okay," she said, descending the remainder of the stairs. "Are you then referring to my ability to identify any poison existing in nature and happily pointing them out? Or my ability to kill anyone in their sleep by simply sprinkling a little bit of powder on their dinner? Or is it my affinity to the Independents? Or is it that I have a half million credits hidden away--not in a bank?" She made eye contact with Mal. "All I need to do is contact Captain Shaw."
Half a second passed before Mal said, "Welcome to the crew."