(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 12
It wasn't so bad really.
Simon had been scared and confused when the kidnappers came. At first he had thought only to protect Kaylee if he could, but they were pulled apart so savagely and the bag put over his head so fast, he really didn't know what happened to her at all. They assured him later that she was fine, they hadn't done her so much harm, and had left her free to go. Simon hoped rather than believed that they spoke the truth.
Being here didn't bother him much. At least he was proving useful to his kidnappers, to those he had been brought to. The sick and the injured of the hills wanted a doctor. They seemed unable or unwilling to request help and so had kidnapped him to come do their bidding. It was almost easy to forget he was here against his will, that he ought to feel scared or trapped. Of course he thought of River and wondered what would happen with her in his absence, but Simon concentrated mostly on his patients, on doing the best he could for each of them. It was what he was taught for, built for, in a way, he supposed. It was his vocation in life that had been snatched cruelly away by fate and destiny. Perhaps this was their way of giving it back to him. God was supposed to move in mysterious ways after all, Doralee had said as much. The teacher-cum-nurse was kind enough, for an accessory to a kidnapping, but as Simon had pointed out, it was men who brought him here, not God. Now he was wondering if the divine did have a hand in this situation, if perhaps he was supposed to be here, just like this.
"Try to keep your weight off it a while," he told the patient he just finished tending, fixing the bandage in place on her foot.
She nodded thanks as he stood up and stretched out his aching back. Simon glanced round the makeshift infirmary. For the first time in a long time, he felt like a doctor. It was by no means a bad feeling. Aboard Serenity, he was a medic of a kind, but minor bullet wounds, cuts and bruises could all have been dealt with just as easily without him. In this place, at least he was useful, helpful, needed. It was so much more than he felt in his new home. River and Jayne had a purpose. A reader and a fighter were always going to be of use in the Captain's type of business. A doctor could be needed, sometimes, perhaps, but not often, not regularly. With all of them being fugitives from Osiris, it was almost too much of a risk to be aboard unless they were of great use. More than once, Simon considered he might have been better off staying home. River and Jayne could have coped well enough without him, and he would have had his career at least. He wondered if he had done the right thing giving up everything for people who didn't really need him at all.
A scuffle outside the doors of the so-called hospital caught Simon's attention then. He turned to go and see what was happening, but Doralee got in his way. She had barely reached the door herself when it swung inwards with a force, hardly allowing her a chance to move away before two men came tumbling in, both unconscious on the ground.
"Lord have mercy!" she gasped at the sight.
Simon did not attend to what might have been patients. His eyes were fixed on the next two people to enter, those that must have caused the first two to fall.
"Hey now, Doc!" said Jayne, grinning wide. "Got yourself into a spot o' trouble now, ain't ya?"
"Guh-guh!" River cried happily, running to hug Simon tightly. "Found you," she declared, like a proud child who just won a game of hide and seek.
"You did," he agreed, unable to keep from smiling, "but I don't understand. How did you...?"
"Best tracker in the business," said River proudly, gesturing towards Jayne. "And Captain Daddy will be back soon. Just need to get away."
"What is going on?" asked Doralee, coming over to interrupt the whispered conversation.
"Oh, this is River, my sister, and Jayne, her... um, significant other," he said awkwardly.
Doralee looked from one to the other with an expression showing something not unlike distaste. Neither River nor Jayne paid no mind to her looks nor nothing else about her. They hadn't a plan to stay in such a place anyhow. They came for Simon and that was that.
"Well, if you're fixing to stay for a visit, I can have another bed made up at the doctor's house, I suppose," said the teacher, though her face weren't as friendly as her offer.
"Ain't fixin' to stay long," said Jayne archly.
River put a hand to his chest and met his eyes. She knew what he was thinking, she always did. Of course she knew what most people were thinking, a not small part of the time. Her eyes travelled from Jayne to Doralee in one smooth movement and her looks grew fierce.
"You don't know," she said sharply.
"Excuse me?" said Doralee, clearly confused. "What don't I know, little one?"
"The truth, of anything," River told her without pause. "How to help. What they are. Where home truly lies."
Simon was well aware that something was happening here, something that perhaps only River completely understood. She saw what was coming, or perhaps only what may happen next. Certainly she was reading Doralee and the other woman looked quite upset by it all.
"River," he said gently, trying to get her attention and failing badly. "River, this isn't..."
Her head twisted sharply to the side, to look at another person in the room. Simon could barely make out the figure of a child in the dark. A little girl, they said her name was Ruby. She hadn't spoken in a long while, a mute apparently. Simon could do little for her, he wasn't a psychologist, but if River could see inside her head...
"Afraid," she said softly. "Voice got scared away."
"How could she know that?" asked Doralee, though no-one paid any mind at all.
Simon and Jayne were both focused on River alone as she read the little girl like a book.
"Mother lost control. One sister died, the other lived. Ruby doesn't like red anymore. Has no words, only dark thoughts and silence. She understands."
River stared intently at Ruby who looked back at her with just as intense a gaze. Simon didn't know what to think or say. He shared a glance of concern with Jayne but it was all too late.
"And they shall be among the people, and they shall speak truths and whisper secrets, and you will know them by their crafts. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!"
"Makes me a might nervous though, sir," said Zoe, shaking her head. "We take on four passengers and not a one of 'em has turned out to be exactly what they seem."
"And who in the gorram 'verse does anymore?" the Captain asked her, arms folded across his chest. "Now I surely agree that the Preacher havin' the kind of credentials that gets him the best care and attention at an Alliance facility puts me in mind to ask a few questions of the man when he's good and well enough to be asked, but as to the rest? They're part of this crew now. They made themselves all kindsa useful to me. I gave my word we was goin' back, so we're goin'."
He looked up as Inara appeared down the stairs, smiling as she heard him. Clearly she approved of what he was saying, of what he was doing. Zoe nodded her head and went back to Wash on the bridge.
"It's amazing how quickly it happens," said Inara, standing by Mal.
"What's that now?"
"How quickly a person can become part of the family, part of Serenity," she said, looking fondly around the interior of the ship. "I knew you would never leave them behind."
"Folks grow on ya, I guess," he said, shrugging his shoulders, but the slight curve of his lips gave him away, and they both knew it.
"Er, Cap'n?" Wash called via the comms. "Not sure this is going to be so much of a pick-up as a rescue," he declared, looking down at the scene planetside.
"Tyen shiao duh!" Mal muttered as he headed for the bridge. "Why does it never run smooth!"
"Hey, Doc," said Jayne, coming upon the boy in the cargo bay. "Whatcha doin'-? Da shiong la se la ch'wohn tian!" he cussed loudly, backing up real sudden when the Doc turned on him with a gun in his hand. "What in the gorram hell you doin', boy?"
"I'm sorry." Simon shook his head, lowering the weapon and then giving up altogether and lying it down on Jayne's own work-out bench. "I'm sorry," he said, sinking down to sit beside it, his head in his hands.
It'd been a hell of a ride these past few days. Jayne didn't wonder at the Doc being jumpy and all, but the last thing he expected was to come down here and find the boy with a piece in his hand. That weren't Simon, but then he hadn't seemed much like himself at all since the kidnapping. Was more'n a day now since the little Firefly came flyin' over Jiangyin, lights blazing, crew all armed and dangerous. They played the Big Damn Heroes that Mal and Zoe surely was since the war, rescuing Jayne, Simon, and River all. T'weren't often Jayne had needed rescuing in his life, but that had been one o' the few times. He wasn't so armed as he would've liked to been, and that town had a whole lot of folk, hell bent on burning a witch at the stake. He and Simon would've gone along into the hell fire with River if'n they had to, though Jayne was cultivatin' a plan even then. In the end, it hadn't mattered. The crew had come to get 'em back, just like Mal promised. Just like River always knew they would.
"I'm useless," said Simon, out of the blue.
Jayne frowned at that. "Doctor ain't useless to nobody."
"A doctor is of limited use in any situation that matters around this place," said Simon, looking out at the world from between his fingers. "What can I do, Jayne? What use was I on Jiangyin? What use when the crew is... is committing crime or running from the law? I can't fly a spaceship or corral cattle or be in a fight of any kind! I am useless!" he declared angrily, standing up and kicking a crate so hard it ought to have shattered, and yet in fact it barely budged an inch nor showed a mark.
There was nothing Jayne could think to say to him. Simon made a good point. Not a thing that the Doc said was untrue when it came to stuff he couldn't do, but that didn't make him useless exactly. 'Course Jayne was startin' to see why he might think so and t'weren't lost on him how ironical the situation was.
"Y'know, ain't exactly unfamiliar to me to feel useless myownself," said Jayne, sitting himself down aside Simon now. "I hardly did go to school as a kid. Never really saw no point when I could be helpin' my Pa back home and all. 'Sides, I weren't good at neither spellin' nor cypherin'. At that kinda thing, I was the useless one, but I found plenty else I could do. Trackin', shootin', punchin' my way outta trouble, and drinkin' any man alive under the table," he said proudly, so proudly in fact that Simon couldn't help but laugh a little. "I'd be damn useless in that fancy world you come from, Doc, or so you'd think, but your folks hired me anyway. Found my worth on Osiris, and you'll find yours here," insisted.
Simon nodded, knowing he had a point, knowing that he did have prupose here, in a way. Just not quite the purpose he could find elsewhere perhaps.
"Would you do something for me, Jayne?" he asked after a moment, reaching for the gun he had abadoned before. "Teach me how to use this?"
Jayne frowned at the question, clearly not at all happy in answering it.
"You sure on that?" he said eventually. "I ain't sayin' a man didn't ought to know how to defend hi'self and his kinfolk, but there's a whole other side to takin' hold of a gun and meanin' to take a life."
"I don't particularly want to kill anyone" Simon shook his head. "But if you can teach me to aim true, perhaps I would never have to. Perhaps a genuine threat, or even a warning shot would be enough. I just need to know I can do... something. In that kind of sitaution, I can't stand to be that useless again"
"You got yourself a deal, doc." Jayne nodded. "You wanna learn, I'll teach ya."
"Thank you," Simon smiled. "And should you ever feel the need to learn spelling and mathematics..."
"I'll ask your sister" said Jayne with a leer. "She's got a better rewards system for me than you'd ever have," he said, laughing lecherously.
Simon put his face back in his hands and forced his brain to think of anything else!
To Be Continued...