A/N: The last chapters. My first Firefly fic is posted the night before our little fandom grows up and is hijacked by many new and exciting people. That sounds a little sneering, but I am excited, honest! (Although more than a little annoyed that I have to wait another week for the UK premiere... even though I saw it in Edinburgh...). So everyone send happy thoughts to the cinema-going public to make the BDM do well. We found something special, so its time to share it with the world...

Enjoy the end of the story. And Surplus Imagination, you were right, Mal goes wandering!

'Simon? Can you take a look at Jayne's arm?' Zoë asked.

Mal was sitting up at the end of the infirmary bed, trying to keep track of whose injuries Simon had and hadn't dealt with yet.

'Metal in it,' River observed with a gloomy interest. Whether she was talking about Jayne's arm or some injury of her own, Mal couldn't tell.

This hadn't been the best of days. It had begun at four a.m. ship-time with a screaming fit from River. Then the new job, the one that he had felt unaccountably uneasy about, had ended in every member of the crew bar himself with some injury or another. He still wasn't entirely sure what had went wrong, the cargo had been delivered and paid for, but someone on the dustbowl planet seemed to have taken against them. Jayne had assured him that he had never been on this planet to steal vast amounts of money and nearly spur off a workers rebellion, so that option was out.

Simon had been working for three hours now, laboriously stitching up knife wounds and a few bullet grazes, and checking concussions. 'Is that everyone?' he asked, voice strained.

Mal had a sudden troubling thought. If everyone on the crew had been in the fight, what about... 'Simon?'

'Yes, Captain?' The boy was at his side in an instant.

'Did you...' There was a crash.

'Simon!' Kaylee shrieked.

Mal crawled off the cot and reached for Simon. Ignoring the twinge of humiliation, he felt about the floor until he hit Simon's shoulder. 'Zoë?'

'Right here, sir.'

Between the two of them, Simon was hauled into an unsteady sitting position. 'Sorry,' he murmured contritely. 'I must have been standing up too long.'

Mal was feeling down Simon's body, and as Simon wasn't protesting, he must be more out of it than he realised. When his fingers hit dampness at Simon's waist, he stopped. 'Doctor?' Mal waved his fingers in front of Simon's face.

'Mal, you're bleeding.'

'Nope, doc, that would be you. When were you gonna tell us all?'

'Oh, I was thinking, right about now.'

'When everyone else was fixed up?'

'That's right,' Simon slurred the words.

'Right. Ni shi bai chi,' Mal muttered with no particular malice. 'Okay, doc, we're gonna lift you onto the bed so Zoë can take a look at you.'

'Captain, it's just a graze, I can do it myself.'

'Right now you look just about dazed enough to sew your lips shut instead. And while I'm not saying that wouldn't be a kindness...'

'Húndàn,' Simon said, glaring.

'That's me,' Mal answered agreeably. 'Now come on.'

'Captain,' Zoë said, 'Are you sure you should be…'

'It's been two weeks, the burns are healed. I can lift him, I just can't see where to.'

'That was kinda my point, sir.'

'Oh.'

'Yeah.'

'I know where the bed is. How hard can it be?' Zoë backed down but he imagined she had put on her "why am I following this man, again?" look. Mal stepped carefully over Simon, and knelt down beside the doctor again. He hooked one arm under Simon's knees, and wrapped the other round his shoulders. 'Okay.' Getting up was harder than it should be. Apparently those burns weren't quite healed up yet.

'I can take him, Mal,' Jayne offered.

'I've got it,' Mal snapped, wondering again how Simon and Jayne had made up without him noticing.

'Just offerin,' Jayne grumbled. 'Don't want you blaming me when you drop the boy and he cracks his head open.'

He didn't bother replying to that one. Mal hauled himself up and raised Simon to approximately the right height. He stepped forward.

'Ow!' Simon exclaimed.

'Sorry.' Mal lifted him a little higher. That was right. When he felt his legs hit the cot, he placed Simon gently on the bed. 'There.' Mal pushed the hair out of Simon's eyes carefully and turned to glower at his doubting crew.

'Perfect, Captain,' Kaylee said encouragingly.

Zoë came up beside him. 'Can I take a look now, sir, or is blindfolded surgery another one of those skills you've neglected to tell us about?'

'Go ahead,' he answered generously.

Simon had been right, it was only a shallow cut. His collapse had been part exhaustion over the past two weeks and part the three hours of surgery while slowly bleeding out. What kind of idiot didn't think to even bandage the thing to stop the blood, even if he wouldn't take the time to stitch it?

So now Mal was lying on the hospital cot again, Simon at least persuaded to lie down on the other side of the room, though he refused to leave it. Mal, on the other hand, was desperate to leave. This had been another of those days were, but for sheer luck, a bullet or knife could have taken out any one of his crew. He could never sleep properly after a day like that. After a few half-awake dreams about blood and screaming, and a particularly jolt-worthy one of River screaming in his ear at Simon getting himself shot, he sat up. If anything good had happened today, it had been him proving that he was okay to get out of bed.

With only the slightest of guilty looks at the doctor lying in the bed facing his, Mal pulled himself onto the floor. He walked slowly towards the doorway, thankful that no one was awake to see him wandering around with his hands outstretched to find the walls.

He made it up the stairs. That might have been the problem. Having successfully negotiated the first difficult part, he sped up. Hitting something (someone?) in the darkness made him fall heavily to the ground. He chose to stay there. All he had wanted was to make it from the infirmary to the kitchen. That was so much to ask?

He sat in the corridor for a long moment. Somewhere in the ship, someone screamed. Heart-pounding, it took him a longer than it should to work out that it was River. He envied, just for a second, how easy she found it to cry for help. River had a nightmare, screamed, and in less than a minute Simon would be at her side.

Or not. He heard soft, quick footfalls coming towards him, followed by less graceful, probably still half-asleep ones. River dropped down beside him. 'All you need to do is ask,' she whispered. It was always slightly disturbing when River said something cryptic that you understood.

'River!' Simon exclaimed admonishingly. He was at the far end of the corridor. 'Why did you run away? You could be waking up everyone else…' he trailed off.

'You just gonna stand there looking?' Mal asked tiredly.

'Perhaps. Did you fall, or why are you on the floor?'

'Tripped on something.'

Simon paused. 'It's a metal pole,' he said bemusedly. 'It's…I have no idea what it's doing there.'

'Probably Jayne.'

'Probably. Why did you leave?'

'Didn't realize I wasn't supposed to.'

'That's why you snuck out in the middle of the night just after I had collapsed from blood-loss?'

'Okay, when you say it like that of course it's gonna sound pre-meditated.'

'You're trying to claim that it wasn't?'

'Couldn't sleep. Just wanted out of there.'

'Okay.'

'Okay?'

'Yes.' Simon's placed his hand in Mal's to pull him up. 'Tea?'

Mal allowed himself to be led towards the dining room.

Simon deposited him on one of the couches and River curled up beside Mal, suspiciously calm now. Simon made three cups of tea and sat down with the two of them.

'Simon?' River asked. 'Do you remember the stories?' Her voice had gone distant again.

'Which stories, mei mei?' he asked. Mal could hear the stress in the young man's voice.

'From before. Princesses and peas, and witches and knights, and pirates and thieves and kings.'

'That was a long time ago,' he laughed. 'When you were very small I used to read to you, but...'

'Not so long,' she protested. 'Now too.'

'Now?'

'Must be. Otherwise the thieves would kill the boy and sell the girl,' she said, panicked.

'River…'

'No sense. Illogic everywhere!' her voice rose higher.

'River, please,' Simon begged.

'Hush now,' Mal ordered. She went quiet. 'Mei mei, even in the world, people sometimes do good things, dong ma?'

'Balance,' she muttered.

Mal nodded uncertainly. 'Sure, there's that. And maybe the boy was very good at his job. And maybe the Captain had a weakness for strays.'

'Yes?'

'Yeah. So why don't you lie back and let your brother rest? He's pretty beat.'

'Can't fix everything.'

'No, he can't. Doesn't seem to stop him trying.' Simon sighed, but both Mal and River ignored it. 'Tell you what,' Mal offered, 'you sit at peace, and I'll tell you a story. Okay?'

'Shiny,' she answered with a giggle.

'Okay then. Once upon a time, there lived a precocious brat, and her long-suffering big brother who adored her…'

'Not a brat!' she whispered, poking him.

'Shh!'

It was still night when Mal woke to River easing her way off the chair. Simon's head fell against Mal's shoulder, but he didn't wake. Mal curled one hand lightly around the younger man's upper arm to stop him falling.

'Shush,' River whispered. 'He needs sleep.'

'That he does,' Mal agreed quietly.

She echoed her words from months ago, 'He takes so much looking after.'

'I've got him,' Mal answered, not knowing why he had used "him" rather than "it".

She skipped towards the door. 'I know,' she said. 'But he doesn't.'

Translations:

Ni shi bai chi - you're an idiot
húndàn - asshole/bastard