Sorry guys this is a short chapter, but enjoy anyway. Although it just keeps getting worse...
Chapter 8: Leaving...?
Serenity touches down the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night and Mal wonders if he's going to die out here.
"Everybody dies alone."
He shuts down Serenity's engine and strains his eyes against the darkness. Has Monty come? Has he left him too? Then he spots the ship a short way away. Mal tries to stand but a shooting pain goes up his legs. He slumps back onto the chair. Mal bites off a scream and slams his hand down to open the cargo bay doors.
"Mal?" he hears a voice yelling through the cargo bay, then, "Gorramit! What happened here? Mal!"
"Monty…I'm here…" Mal yells back, his voice loud in his ears. He hadn't realised how tired he was. If he could be bothered to go to the infirmary he could get some more of the doc's drugs, maybe a nice adrenalin shot…His eyelids droop. Maybe if he just had a little sleep.
"Malcolm Reynolds wake up that's a gorram order!"
"Yes sir," Mal slurs but opens his eyes.
Monty looms over him, beard firmly back in place.
"Hey you've got the soup catcher back…" Mal's voice is still slurred.
"What happened?"
"Reavers. Gorram reavers on my boat…"
"Your crew? Zoë?"
"Gone…shuttles," Mal's eyes close again as his leg spasms painfully. He grits his teeth and opens his eyes again. "Think I'm dead." He laughs. "Think I went down with my ship…"
Mal's eyelids droop again. Monty's medic pulls them open, shines a light in his eyes. Mal swats weakly at the torch.
"What have you taken? Have you been drinking?"
"Just some painkillers from the doc's stash…" Mal mumbles, wishing they would go away and let him sleep.
"Get him up."
Monty is hauling him to his feet, slinging an arm round him and taking his weight. Monty half-carried Mal from Serenity through the cargo bay doors. They took nothing but Mal, leaving behind the smell of blood and burnt reaver.
River and Jayne are hauling their belongings into Serenity's cargo bay. Wash collected them on the mule. On the journey Kaylee had bullied Mal into getting major repairs done to the catwalks and stairways. The cargo bay is still blackened but the catwalks are shiny and new and usable.
In the time it took to do that they've managed to collect the shuttle too.
Jayne throws another duffle bag onto the pile of trunks and bags, and turns to take another bag from River. They sure have collected a lot of stuff in six years. Mal is gonna hate them.
Kaylee is sorting through a basket full of parts she made Mal go to the junkyard with her to get. He couldn't say no, he won't not to any of them. Mal himself is sat on a crate, watching his crew come home.
Simon is nowhere to be seen. Kaylee hasn't seen him since their conversation on the sofa. He left Serenity about five minutes after they landed, that was eighteen hours ago, and he didn't say goodbye. Jayne and River say they haven't seen him at the house.
Kaylee wonders if he's gone for good. She focuses very hard on a motivator in her hand and blinks repeatedly.
"That's the last of it Mal," Jayne shouts across the cargo bay.
River is stood on the ramp staring out at her home for the last six years, wind fluttering her hair. Mal looks at Kaylee sniffling over her parts, pulls a face and goes to River. "Is he coming?"
River smiles a bit eerily at him, "Simon's got to tell himself pretty lies Captain."
"Captain dummy talk please River."
"He's going to pretend he can live without Serenity." She looks round at Kaylee's crouched figure. "He's going to pretend he can live without her."