A/N
Hopefully apparent, but I'll specify in advance regardless that this is a take on events during Bushwhacked.
In the Black
Something...into the black...something...don't come back...
Simon Tam doesn't know when, where or from whom he heard that bloody song. It must have been out of the corner of his ear, because he couldn't imagine anyone on this rustbucket actually singing bar Kaylee, and he knows...wishes...that she has better taste. But right now, it's academic. Right now, it's the only thing that's keeping him from looking out into the namesake of the line he keeps going over in his head. Right now, it's the only thing that's keeping him sane.
It's hard not to feel that he's fighting a losing battle.
Simon can understand the generalities of desiring to stick around "in the black," as some put it. What he can't understand however, is the fixation anyone has for it out here. Not the captain, not his crew, not even River, whose gaze is completely opposite his. He can't help but envy her, and be glad of vaccuum's calming effect on his younger sister, but even so he has to wonder-if one loves staring at the stars so much, why risk coming out into space? Sure, light pollution's an issue on Osiris and pretty much every other central planet, but it's easy enough to get away from man-made light sources. It doesn't mean you have to risk your life on a floating death trap. Quite frankly, to want to be this close to the stars for the sake of it just sounds insane.
Which, given what he understands of Captain Malcolm Reynolds, actually explains a lot of things.
So here he is...in nothing. A suit seperating him from nothing, where nothing can cause paralysis, swelling, a fall in blood pressure, a rise in venous pressure, the evaporation of liquid from every opening his body and his favourite, rupturing of the lungs. Oh, and death. Somehow, in the midst of hiding from Alliance thugs who want him dead (or worse...and after seeing what's happened to River, he knows that's possible), he's forgotten that technicality.
He can hear the hiss of air in his vaccuum suit. He can hear...not much else really. Imagine that...to die in silence. Not screaming like a botched surgery, not in a final breath of air, defiant to the last against the inevitability of death, just...silence. Chances are he'll run out of air, or lose his grip on this rustbucket, or he'll head inside to escape both of those fates, only to find a rifle stuck in his face. There are many ways of dying, but he's not going to question when or if that's going to happen to them. No...the only question on Simon Tam's mind is this...
...what the hell am I doing out here?
He looks at River...anything's better than looking at the inky blackness of space, and staring at scarred hull plating isn't that much more appealing. He looks at river...still staring out into infinity...
...and at that moment, Simon Tam rememebrs why he's here.