AN1: Fast upload of chapters (and two at a time!) I know, but I want this up before the BDM. Reviews are still really nice though, so please tell me what you liked/didn't like. Blue Eyed Dragon Girl, corrupted-innocentand Vampbarbie, thanks so much for reviews!

Mal jerked awake. Simon was shaking his arm, none too gently. 'Captain!'

'What the...? Doc, I was trying to sleep!'

'It's four pm.'

'Don't make much difference in the black now, does it?'

Simon made a noise which could have been amusement but seemed more like annoyance. 'Of course. Regardless of that, I need you to wake up a moment.'

'You wanna look at my eyes?' Mal muttered blearily, still not quite awake.

'Not right now,' Simon answered awkwardly. 'We... and by we I mean Jayne, Zoë and I... have found a job. Another hospital. We've got buyers for the medicine, plans to get in and out...'

'Do I need to come with you?'

'What?'

'Since our last hospital job ended with a bounty hunter sneaking on board my boat looking for little sis, I gotta figure the reason we're pulling another is cause you need something for me we ain't got. Am I getting warm?'

'I need to liberate a particular type of mender,' Simon admitted. 'But you don't need to come with us, it's fairly portable.'

'Like the one you used for my ear?'

'Like that, yes. More complicated, unfortunately. Hence the need for the hospital. But it should help establish how long your recuperation is likely to be.'

'So we don't need it to fix me up?'

'I...'

'You don't know.'

'No, I don't. I'm sorry, Captain, but the eye is so delicate and...'

Mal interrupted Simon before he gave himself a panic attack. 'No one's accusing you of anything, doc. If you say you need the machine, you need the machine. Now, do I have any say in this plan, or has Zoë launched some kind of coup?'

'No coup, sir,' Zoë answered from the doorway.

'Consider it delegation,' Wash observed from somewhere near his wife.

Mal jerked. 'How many people are in this room!'

'Including you?' Wash said. 'Five.'

'Me, Simon, Zoë, you... who else?' Mal asked.

'Me,' a quiet voice answered from the side of the room.

'You've been pretty quiet there, mei mei,' he said to River. 'No words of wisdom on your brother's job?'

'The melody is seldom the problem. The repeating counter-melody is what causes the problem. Especially when it returns.' She looked around at the effect this had on them. 'Be careful on the way back.'

'See that, right there?' Mal said. 'That's why no one believes that you're as crazy as you talk.'

She laughed. 'One of us will get a shock.'

That was eerie. Moving on. 'So, what's the plan?'

'Kaylee...'

'Doc, no good dangerous plan ever began with Kaylee. I thought Zoë'n Jayne were doing this.'

'And me,' Simon reminded him.

'Well that's a given, though don't make the mistake of thinkin I'm thrilled about that part either. Why're you bringing Kaylee into it?'

'Because our plan depends on someone looking like they know how to take a machine apart.'

'And then...?'

'Captain, I'm not sure we have time to...'

'Doctor, which one of us is in charge of this boat? I'd thank you to carefully consider our titles before you answer.'

'I'm sorry.' Simon sighed. 'I'll be brief: we've procured credentials of sorts which should get us into the hospital. The security staff and reception will let us in because we have the right passes, and we'll be bringing a pretty girl with a toolbox. There is no reason for them to suspect us. I find the machine and let Kaylee tweak with it for an hour or so while Jayne and I take some drugs. Kaylee explains that the machine is broken and needs outside maintenance. We leave with the drugs and the mender. Deliver the drugs to our buyer, take the payment, and then I get to see how much damage you did to your eyes.'

'Seems a lot of that plan's dependant on hospital folk buying Kaylee as one of their mechanics,' Mal said.

'People always believe Kaylee. The same way they're always scared of Jayne.'

'Bet your gorram ass they are,' Jayne added in satisfaction.

Mal successfully fought off the urge to yell at someone for not telling him that Jayne had entered. 'So why is Jayne going on this little adventure? He doesn't exactly inspire confidence in core folk.'

'No, but he'll match their picture of an engineer. We need someone who looks like they have lots of muscle and not much brain.'

'Hey!'

'I said "looks like",' Simon said innocently. 'And we're talking about the core, remember? You don't care what we pansy-ass pretty-boys think of your attributes.' There was a certain relish in the way Simon repeated that last phrase that made Mal think Simon had just scored a point in the Simon-Jayne battle of wits. Wits being present on at least one side of the battle anyway.

Now, however, was not the time. 'So what are Zoë and Wash doing?'

'I'm flying getaway shuttle, naturally,' Wash answered.

'And Zoë is providing cover fire,' Simon finished.

'Cover fire for what?' Mal exclaimed. 'So far as I hear, there shouldn't be a need for firing of any kind.'

'No, there shouldn't. But I've been on this ship long enough to know that it's going to end with bullets no matter how well we plan. So that's it. Book and River are staying on the ship, but Book will be up front talking to us, so that's just you and River here.'

'Wait just one minute...'

'I'm sorry, Captain, we really have to go. We'll all be fine.' Mal might not have heard them all coming in, but the sound of the empty room was all too clear. Damn boy had been a hairs-breadth from patronising him! And then had the gall to just up and leave! He had a good mind to... sit here like a peaceful invalid until his crew came back to rescue him. He was never good at patience.

Simon burst into the room only a few minutes after he had left it so calmly.

'Back so soon, doc?' Mal quipped.

'How did you know it was... never mind.' Simon stood over the cot, and Mal felt cool metal placed into his hand. Simon's soft hand wrapped itself around Mal's calloused one, curving both their fingers round what he had recognised instantly as a pistol.

'Simon?' Mal said, quietly. 'Not that I don't appreciate your conviction in my prowess with weaponry, but I dunno how much use I'll be with this right now.'

Simon's fingers clenched around Mal's tightly as he pulled both of their arms up to point vaguely at the doorway. His voice was tense. 'If anyone comes up here and doesn't say they're part of the crew, aim at the door and shoot.'

'Doc, I'm not shooting at what I can't see. I could hit you! Or Kaylee, or River or...'

'I'll tell everyone to call before they come walking past.' Mal pulled his hands from Simon's. 'No, Captain, listen! If anyone else gets here, they'll have got past my trained assassin baby sister. You'll only get one shot. If it makes you feel better, aim for the gut rather than the head, and if it's one of us I'll stitch them back up.'

'Thought everyone was going to be fine?'

'Everyone is.' Mal couldn't decide whether to be relieved or disgusted that Simon had reverted to his patronising/reassuring voice.

'You didn't sound so sure a minute ago.'

'I'm a worrier, Captain, what can I do?' Simon laughed lightly, inviting Mal to share the joke at his expense. Mal couldn't laugh though. Simon's hands were reflexively running underneath the edges of the bandages on the captain's eyes and down his shoulders, reassuring himself that, in this, at least, his work had went as planned.

'It's a good plan, doc. You'll be fine,' Mal found himself adopting Simon's calming tone.

'Thank you.' With one last tug of the bandages, Simon was gone.

Mal sat to wait. The Shepherd checked in on the comm. occasionally, and assured him that River was fine at her post. River, too, felt the need to have one of her strange conversations with him every half-hour or so. Even with that, he was developing a whole new understanding of why Wash and Simon glared daggers at them all when they returned even half an hour late. He ran through the plan in his head. He had been right, it was a good plan. A similar one to Ariel, but without the chance of River being spotted, so probably about a tenth as dangerous. And his crew had all had a hand in it, so between them they surely would have spotted any major flaws...

He was running through the possible trouble spots for the fourth time when he heard the shouting. Mal half-heartedly raised the gun, focussing it more seriously when the Preacher didn't call down to tell him that it was his crew coming back.

Simon screamed, 'Don't shoot!' a half-second before he came pelting into the infirmary.

'Doc, you were about this close to...' he trailed off when the machines he was connected to all started beeping at once. 'Is that...?'

'I disconnected them. I need to get you to the other side of the room.'

Mal tried to roll himself off the cot without aggravating any of his wounds. 'What happened?'

Simon pulled him carefully but unceremoniously off the bed and hauled him to the makeshift cot at the side of the room. 'No time for this right now. Zoë's been shot.'