Simon felt nothing at first. He was only conscious of a vague, troublesome stirring in his sleep, as if he were at the bottom of a deep pool, feeling the dim ripples of a struggle taking place on the surface. Then, he felt himself falling.
He came down on the floor in a tangle of blankets and limbs. His head snapped back, hard, onto the corner of a low table, and he gasped as a star of pain swelled to glowing life in his skull. He opened his eyes, then, and looked up into the smiling face of Jayne Cobb.
"Captain wants to have a word," he said.
Inara leapt from the bed, wrapping a sheet around her body to save her shattered modesty. Jayne stopped her with a look.
"Sorry. Mal wants to see our boy stand on his own. I'm to take him to the cargo bay, once he gets his britches on. My advice," he said, drawing and cocking his pistol, "don't run."
Mal fingered the trigger of his gun. It hung on his hip, solid and steady, like an anchor. The varnished wood and metal of it had been worn smooth with long handling. He had used it to kill dozens, if not hundreds of men. He had killed for profit, for country, for love. He did not regret one of those men yet. He wondered if that was natural. He wondered if the regret would come to him someday, tidally, dragging him under the surface and drowning him.
If that's to come, it'll come, he thought. Best to do the work now, while I can.
He glanced back at Zoe, who stood behind him, cold and irreproachable, holding her weapon at the ready, like a good soldier. He could not read her eyes.
Simon entered the room, barefoot and shirtless, prodded along the catwalk by Jayne's gun. He could feel the cool metal mouth pressed against the knobby curvature of his spine. If Jayne pressed the trigger, he would almost certainly shatter the vertebrae, and perforate the small intestine (Simon thought of them in those terms, the vertebrae, the small intestine, as if they were examples in a textbook). It would not be a quick and certain death, but it would be a nasty, lingering one, and it certainly wouldn't be anything that he could mend.
"Your sister told me where to find you," Mal said. His voice sounded as if he had dragged it over a mile of broken glass. "Does that surprise you?"
Simon didn't answer, but he bowed his head, briefly, as if it were too heavy for his neck to support.
"You might also notice that little sis ain't here today," Mal continued. "I figured she might take exception to what I'm about to do."
"Are you going to kill me, Captain?" Simon said. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. After all, you've threatened it before."
Mal's eyes narrowed, steel blue and sharp as a knife caught in a shaft of sun.
"Jayne," he said, finally, "stand aside."
Simon tried not to tremble with relief as Jayne pulled the gun's hungry nozzle from his back and stepped away, into the shadows beneath the catwalk.
"After careful consideration, Doctor, I find that your employment here ain't working out as nice as I'd like," Mal said. "I've decided to terminate your services. You get off at the next stop. By my reckoning, that gives you about six hours to get yourself packed."
Simon squinted and gaped. He knew that he looked a fool, but he was helpless to hide his bewilderment and growing anger.
"You're firing me," he said. It was not a question. "You're leaving me with no resources, on a planet I don't even know, because… because what? You don't own Inara, Mal. Just because you were interested in her, and you thought she reciprocated your attention, that doesn't give you the right to…"
Simon never finished his sentence. Malcolm Reynolds drew his gun and fired.