Trust Me, I'm A Doctor
By Nefertiri's Handmaiden
Disclaimer: If I owned Firefly, it likely would not be as dark as the following story. In any case, I don't own it.
Note: An AU story set following the BDM. Extremely dark and contains some fairly graphic violence.
-FIREFLY-
Simon smiled to himself as he pulled the knife across Kaylee's belly and listened to her answering scream. What a pretty voice she had, he mused to himself. What a voice box. What a pair of lungs. He'd like to get a closer look at them.
Near Simon's feet, Captain Reynolds gurgled, blood filling his lungs, and reached out a hand in a weak attempt to grab Simon's ankle and drag him to the floor. Simon kicked the captain viciously in the back of the head and continued with his incision.
"Simon, please, please, please," she begged, and he thought it was funny that she actually, truly thought that the Simon she knew was inside of him. "Simon, you're sick," she said.
"No, no," he responded lightly. "No, I'm just fine. And I should know - I'm the doctor, right?" He laughed at his own joke and peeled the flesh of her abdomen back. She screamed again, bloody murder. He grinned at the whimsy of the expression that had crossed his mind. Bloody murder. What a colorful turn of phrase. He liked it. "Bloody murder," he said out loud, and chuckled again at Kaylee's horrified expression.
"Right about now," he said distractedly, still focusing on his work, "you're wondering what happened to me. But you see, Kaylee, I've always been this way." He inspected the incisions he'd made so far and carefully considered where his knife should glide next. "I told you that I was gifted, but I've been hiding just how gifted I truly am my whole life." He chuckled. "People thought River was the smart one. But she was too rutting stupid to realize that if she was that good, that exceptional, no one would ever leave her alone. They'd manipulate her. Stupid girl. Had to show off. I was smarter."
He glided around to stand on the other side of Kaylee and changed instruments. Against her will, it seemed, her eyes followed him. He set down his scalpel and picked up a set of clamps.
"I hid what I could do. Kept myself in the top percentile, but not so remarkable that it was unnatural. I remember when I realized what I had to do. I was three. Three. I was answering their questions, but the more I answered, the more they asked. I realized they would just want to use me. That didn't fit into my plans. Not at all."
He dug around in her abdomen a bit more, clamping something so that she wouldn't bleed out and then shifting some organs around. Kaylee let loose another scream. "And now you're wondering why you haven't passed out from the pain yet. I'm a good doctor, Kaylee. I've pumped you full of some splendid drugs that will keep you nice and alert during our session. I wouldn't want to miss out on hearing you."
She whimpered. "Simon. Please don't. Please. Please. Please stop. Please come back."
He slapped her across the face, momentarily furious. "Haven't you been listening?" He calmed again. "The Simon you know - he's nothing but an act. Fiction. A character I've been playing since I was three. Sincere, soothing, simple Simon. No threat to anyone." He leaned close to her face. "I am very much a threat."
Kaylee closed her eyes tightly and shook her head. "No. Nononononononono."
"Yes. In fact, this whole thing has been part of the plan." He shrugged. "Well, that's not entirely true. The plan has altered a few times because of the human variable - all plans do. But for the most part, I've been moving you all around like pawns in a very complex game of chess." He made a vicious movement in her abdomen. She shrieked. "I knew, you know," he said, as he moved around her again, considering. "I knew what they would do to River at the Academy. Why else would they have recruited her the way they did? The show they put on, the type of men there - it was a trap. But I wanted to see exactly what their plans were, and so I sent River on her way. It got her out of my hair while I got my plans underway. And when the time came, I decided to get her out and see what progress they'd made." He snorted through his nose. "Progress. They turned her into a babbling idiot. Increased her abilities, certainly, but what the hell good is a psychic when she can't control her rutting reading? Morons."
He worked in silence, then, for a while. He made a few more slices inside her, placed a few more clamps, listened to her scream her throat raw. Finally, he reached in with his right hand, firm and confident, and pulled something out of her. Kaylee was so horrified she couldn't even scream. "That's your stomach, little Kaylee," he said, meeting her eyes. He looked it over carefully. "And quite a lovely one it is, too. Quite lovely indeed." Then he dropped it unceremoniously onto the floor. It landed with a wet squelch on the floor. Kaylee let out a whimper.
Simon looked into her carefully again and continued his story. "While she was growing, while she was at school, on this ship, I've been practicing. Stretching my own abilities. It was difficult at first, after so many years of stifling myself. But once I found the right trigger, the right switch in my brain to flip, it was easy. I could read, but I could control it. Soon, I could do more than read." He pressed a quick, almost thoughtless kiss to her forehead. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. "I could control."
He grabbed another instrument from the side table, but Kaylee didn't know the name of this one. She only knew that it was sharp and pointy. He made a quick, vicious movement in her lower abdomen. She tried to scream, but she couldn't get her breath.
"And so I started controlling. Little nudges here and there to get you all to do what I wanted. I probably could have done something more drastic, but I've always believed in a little subtlety. Besides, I didn't know if I could control all of you at once, and if I'd done too much and lost control, somebody would have shot me."
He dug around inside her a little more. Then he stopped, pulled his hands out of her abdomen, and wandered around to the other side of her. "Then, when I got you all where I wanted, I struck."
"I killed River first. Did you know that? I bet you thought she was hiding somewhere, waiting me out, about to set a plan in action. But she's bled out all over the floor of her room." He snorted derisively. "God, what a relief it was to get rid of that stupid, burdensome bitch.
"Then I killed Jayne. The big dumb bastard never saw it coming. I just walked up to him while he was lifting and injected him with a toxin so powerful that he was dead in sixteen seconds.
"Then Zoe. She came to the cargo bay for something. She sure was quick on the trigger, but my thoughts were faster. Froze her solid with my mind. I wasn't even sure it would work - I'd never tried anything so all-inclusive before. And I took that gun right out of her hands and shot her in the head. Her brains are all over the floor of the cargo bay. It's a shame, really. I'd have loved to see what her brain looked like. She was a singular woman."
Kaylee's expression was horrified.
"And, well, you know the rest," he said. He looked down at Mal, who was still alive, but only barely. "Our brave captain will be dead shortly. I'll have to remember to shoot him for good measure. He has a way of coming back, doesn't he? Like a cockroach."
He made a few more slices in her then, and pulled out her pancreas. He set it on her thigh. She could feel how warm it was, feel fluid leaking out of it and through her pants and onto her skin. She wanted to throw up, but not having a stomach, she couldn't. The muscles inside her abdomen clenched reflexively.
He grinned at her. It was an expression that made him look oddly boyish, he knew, and it encouraged people to underestimate him. "You know what the funniest part of all of this is, little Kaylee?" he asked in a whisper, leaning down to talk into her ear. She shivered at his closeness, hot tears streaming down the sides of her face. "The funniest part of this whole thing is that if you had all listened to Jayne, you'd all be still minding your own damn business, stealing and talking and shitting and fucking one another. If you'd listened to Jayne, that big dumb son of a bitch." Simon frowned at his own words. "Quite a man, that Jayne. Thought with his instincts, not his head. Made him a bit harder to manipulate. But I managed," he added, adding a grin for effect. "I managed."
She opened her mouth, tried to say something to him, but there was nothing left.
"I'm bored," he said suddenly. He turned away from her to the sink and methodically scrubbed his hands - bloody up to the elbow, almost, from the things inside her. Then he bent over, pulled Mal's gun from its holster still strapped to his hip and thigh, cocked it, and shot him in the head. Brain matter splattered all over the floor.
He looked back at her, considering.
"Just shoot me, too," she croaked.
And then he smiled that smile - the one that had made her fall for him in the first place.
"You know what?" he said conversationally. "I don't think I will. I'm going to leave you just like that. You'll die eventually. Could take quite some time, though." He winked at her. "It's been… fine knowing you, Kaylee. If you'll excuse me, I need to set a course for the capitol so I can begin my hostile takeover."
He walked out of the med bay toward the bridge, listening to her pretty sobs fade behind him.
-the end-