The Alliance soldier beside him kept eyeing the door that Simon and River had exited. He could tell the ship's mechanic didn't like Matthew's interest in the pair of apparent criminals. The Doctor, for his own part, had his own reasons for being interested in the pair; namely, River. However, whenever he tried to bring up a question relating to her, it was either ignored or shot down.
After Clara had appeared, she'd scarcely left his side. This was probably one of his reasons for continual survival. Captain Malcolm Reynolds didn't seem the type to hurt a girl, and Clara wasn't the type to move out of the way when told.
"Now," said Mal, "I'm just gonna ask you this one more time before I let Jayne take you and get the answers out that way."
"Mal," a woman protested. She was graceful and slender, with dark curly hair and silky clothing. She didn't look like crew, probably a passenger. Still, she looked very highstanding to be riding around in a ship full of smugglers.
"Inara, stay out of this. You're not crew, just a passenger."
She frowned and the doctor heard her say quietly, "Really? I though I was a whore."
Mal ignored her. "What are you, Doctor? You freaked River out, had her spouting all sort of crazy mumbo-jumbo. Now, what made her do that? I think you'd best tell me quick." He fingered his gun, even if it was an empty threat.
Clara glanced up at him, turning her head and cocking it to the side, a question obvious in her eyes. Why not tell them? What harm could it do?
The Doctor decided to answer Mal's question truthfully, which was a rare occurrence. "I'm not human, as I said. I'm a Time Lord, Gallifreyan. I'm from a planet a far ways off, much farther than either your Brown Coats or your Alliance has touched."
Jayne snorted. "If Alliance ain't been there, and no one else's been there; then how in the 'Verse did you get there? His story sounds like a bunch of feihua to me, Mal."
"Only if you assume that I'm human," said the Doctor. "Consider for one moment that I'm telling the truth."
Jayne scoffed and started to mutter something in Chinese.
"Shuddup, Jayne," said Mal, looking intensely at the Doctor. Mal's order to the one man might as well have extended to the entire crew as they all went completely silent. Kaylee's cross expression slowly softened into one that spoke more of confusion than anger. After several moments of silence, the Doctor began to think that maybe he'd finally gotten through to them. That was when Mal piped up, "He does sort of bear a resemblance to old Dead Bessie, doesn't he?"
This comment resulted in an uproar of laughter and Kaylee cracked a bright smile. "I do see it, Cap'n! He could be Dead Bessie's mother. A mite more groomed, though."
Half of Jayne's mouth was tilted up in a smirk. "If you're going to try to convince us you're an alien, might as well look like one first. Only thing really off about you is that monster chin of yours."
Clara stifled a giggle as the Doctor indignantly straightened his bowtie. "It's a lottery. It's not like I pick and choose. My chin is perfectly fine."
Mal snorted. "Doesn't mean it's not a mite big. Anyways, if you're not going to tell us anything, I'll just have to keep you somewhere until we decide something to do with you." He hooked his thumbs in his belt and began to pace slowly. "Don't need to be getting scared, no doubt the preacher will take it upon himself to make sure no harm comes to you."
Sure enough, the Shepherd raised his head in affirmation. "Of course, captain."
"I didn't need you to talk, shepherd," said Mal gruffly, though not altogether unkindly. "I think I made it pretty clear I was aware of your intentions." Mal began walking to the door then stopped and turned around. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but seemed to think better of it and closed his mouth again. He seemed ready to leave again before he finally mentioned what he had been going to say before. "You never mentioned how River knew about that blue box of yours, or what that blue box is for that matter."
"I don't know," said the Doctor. "She shouldn't know about it. She shouldn't know about me. She knows far more than she should."
"And what's the blue box?" Mal repeated.
"Mine," said the Doctor, "And that's all you need to know."
Mal's eyes narrowed slightly, then he shrugged. "Jayne, take the Doctor and this fancy little Alliance soldier to one of the empty rooms. Lock 'em up." He seemed to consider something for a moment. "I'll give you a bit of extra coin next job if you can get some real answers out of them."
"Neither of us will break," said Matthew determinedly.
Mal rolled his eyes and sighed. "Ni shi sai gooa..." he muttered. "How much you want to bet this one's the first to break?" Mal asked, jerking a thumb at Matthew.
"I will not let you torture them," said the Shepherd, planting himself firmly in front of the captain. Mal ignored him.
Jayne gestured with Vera at Matthew and the Doctor, then grabbed Clara by the arm. Even Kaylee, who hadn't had much good to say on the Doctor's behalf, found this to be a problem.
"Jayne, whadda ya think you're doing?"
Jayne glanced at the mechanic, then at the girl, then to Mal, then back at Kaylee. "They'll break faster if I use her."
The Doctor turned to glare darkly at Jayne ready to crush him if the situation called for it. Jayne was a big man, but the Doctor had the advantage of being a Time Lord. Of course, Jayne had the advantage of a very large gun and a hostage.
"You'll leave her alone," said Kaylee, grabbing Clara's other arm. "She ain't done nothing but get dragged along with us. You're not going to hurt her."
Jayne was a stubborn man, but it seemed that even he didn't want to get into a battle of the wills with the ship's mechanic. After a brief stare off, he dropped Clara's arm.
The Doctor's expression softened and he silently mouthed his thanks to Kaylee. She turned up her nose at him and, with Clara reluctantly following her, exited the room.
"How's River?" asked Mal.
Simon looked up from a bag of his own sanitary medical odds and ends. His mouth was in a slight 'O' shape, and Mal had evidently surprised him. He shook out of his stupor and closed up his bag.
"I didn't think you'd be one to care much," he said, looking down at the counter.
"And why's that?"
"You don't usually act to concerned about her, not unless you're worried she'll mess with the cargo or make a job potentially go south with her..." he trailed off. There was no need for him to continue, they both knew what he meant.
"You'd be surprised," Mal said. "When I think something's threatening my ship, I tend to be a mite concerned."
Simon jumped immediately to his sister's defense. "River hasn't done anything that would be a danger to the ship. She just found that doctor interesting, that's all. Maybe she recognized him. I can keep her under control-"
Mal held up a hand. "Slow down. It's not your sister I'm worried about, it's that Doctor fellow. Jayne's interrogating him and that Alliance soldier, but I think she could get better answers from him. She scares him far more than Jayne ever could. I've seen his type before. He's seen war. You can see it in his eyes. What do you say?"
"You want me to let you take my sister and sit her down right in front of some man who she's clearly associating with something that I don't know about, which means it probably happened at the Academy, and you want me to agree to it?" Simon looked incredulous. "Of course not."
"I wasn't asking you, son," he said.
River slowly padded over to him, bare feet tiptoeing across the floor. He tried to ignore the shivers the girl sent down his spine. She looked up at him through her dark hair, a long straggly mess that only ever got brushed when either Inara or Kaylee did it.
"I'm not afraid of the storm," she whispered. "The storm will not hurt me. He wants to help." She glanced back at where Simon was standing, but looked past him, mouthing something silently that more than likely only made sense to her.
Simon was slowly shaking his head. "I won't let you take her. I won't let you."
Mal gripped River tightly with a suddenness and tightness that made her cry out. "I don't think you remember who the captain is on this here boat. I'll give you a hint, it's not the one wearing fancy pants."
Without another word, he led River out of the infirmary and onto the platform, walking down a hallway a very short ways before reaching a yellowish frame, on the other side of which he could see the silhouettes of the two men and then Jayne, pacing back and forth carrying something large and ugly looking, probably his knife. He pushed the screen open, glancing behind him to see that Simon had followed them and was now staring in what bordered on horror at Mal.
"Please, no. She's just a girl!" He ran forward, stupidly attempting to charge them. Mal pushed River inside, pulled the screen shut and locked it.
Simon could be heard banging his fists on the outside of the door and calling the captain all sorts of names that would normally never exit the man's mouth. Jayne looked amused.
"Doc doesn't sound too happy," he said, then frowned, pointing his knife at River, who was looking back where Simon was. "What is she doing here?"
Mal looked down at the girl. "Thought she'd be useful with the Doctor. Didn't think you and your knife would work as well on him." At the mention of the Doctor, River's attention shifted immediately from Simon to the man in the bowtie and purple waistcoat.
Jayne gestured Mal a bit to the side, his cheeks tinged with pink. Was he embarrassed? Mal chuckled inwardly at the thought.
"Listen," said Jayne. "This type of thing is my job, I don't need some lunatic doing it for me. I already got a lot from that Matthew guy, he doesn't even realize how much he's giving me. I'm fine without the girl."
"Yeah, well," said Mal, "I'm the captain."
He moved away from Jayne to watch River, who had bent down to get on eye level with the Doctor.
She reached for his hands and pressed them to her head as she had done before, this time, the Doctor complied with her wishes. He adjusted his fingers on her head and closed his eyes, a look of intense concentration on his face. River whimpered once, then was quiet, her eyes closing as well, worry lines etching her forehead. The Doctor bowed his head forward and the worry lines disappeared.
"Two by two, hands of blue," she said quietly.
The Doctor shushed her. "I know, River. I can see what they did to you. I can see it all."
The lines returned on her head and she tensed up. "Don't want you to see. When you see, I see. It hurts."
The Doctor opened his eyes. "I'm sorry, River," he said.
"You have things that hurt too," said River, seeming to have forgotten Mal and everyone else entirely. "Gallifrey. Rose. Ponds," she paused, "Clara. She dies too much. So many times. In the future, in the past. You're afraid she'll die again and it hurts you. They call you the storm," she said, suddenly veering off topic as River was known to do. "If you're the storm, then they're the sun. The people who you travel with are there to chase away the rain. Too much rain kills all the flowers. Agrimonia gryposepala, Cyperus erythrozhizos, Viola Striata," River continued to rattle off scientific names of flowers.
The Doctor just looked at her with an expression of mixed emotions. Confusion, awe, curiosity, sadness.
"The blue box doesn't like when you bring flowers. You forget about them and they get all over her floors when the petals fall. She doesn't like the horse either. Says he stinks."
"The TARDIS is talking to you?" Here was where they started getting answers from him, Mal thought triumphantly. Though, what was a TARDIS?
River looked confused. "TARDIS? Is she called TARDIS? It's not her name, she told me her name was" -the Doctor's face turned a very bright shade of pink, far more than Jayne had been- "Sexy."
Mal raised both eyebrows and looked at the Doctor. "Sexy?"