Chapter 18

Mal was relieved when he found River asleep on the sofa outside the infirmary. The stress of the day coupled with giving Simon blood had driven her past the point of exhaustion and Mal figured she didn't need to hear about the files that night. Mal covered her with a blanket and then asked Zoe to lock down the ship for the night. After locking the hatch to his bunk Mal sat on his bed and tried to calm himself before uploading the files Inara had given him.

The data stick was nearly full most of the files were medical reports that were as incomprehensible to Mal as ancient Greek. He spent an hour scanning the medical files, most of them concerned River, but a fair number of them were about Simon as well, making him believe Inara's story even more. He was nearly ready to give up and leave the files for Simon to read when one caught his eye. R. Tam sessions was the name of the file and it appeared to be one of the largest files of them all.

He uploaded the file quickly and was startled when River popped up on the screen. This was a River Mal had never seen before. Not only was she much younger than she was now, but this was a River before the Alliance had gotten to her. She was so calm and put together and there was a clarity and innocence in her eyes that Mal had never seen before. Watching her like that brought a lump to his throat and gave him just one more reason to hate the Alliance. He had never wanted anything so badly as to kill the hun-dan who sat across from her in the video, the doctor who was tricking her, using her desire to learn to trap her.

Would I still be allowed to dance? Young River asked hopefully and Mal felt his heart break a little more for all that his love had lost at the hands of the Alliance monsters.

He watched the video for hours, staying awake all night to do so. It was harder than he'd ever imagined it would be, watching River's descent into madness. As the hours drug on Mal watched the young River grow older and steadily more unstable. He watched as the hope faded from her eyes as time had gone on. She talked often about Simon and her belief that he would come for her. She spoke of him less and less the further he got into the file, the hope of rescue fading from her eyes. There were times that her despair on the video was so palpable Mal wished he could reach through the screen and comfort her, hating the fact that she had suffered so much. He found a new respect for Simon that night seeing the sister he had lost and the one that he had found so changed from the bright carefree girl she had been.

He came to the end of the video just past breakfast time the next morning. He watched in a fascinated horror as River completed her first assignment and killed the doctor who'd spent so much time interrogating her in that drab room. Mal wasn't sure if it was an actual assignment that she'd been given or a fabricated one that her broken mind had created, but either way Mal felt his blood run cold as he watched the precise and efficient way she killed him. That file was the last one and Mal wondered if it was because they had simply stopped trying to talk to her or because Simon had gotten her out right after that.

Once the screen was blank Mal sat still trying to absorb everything he had just seen. Waves of nausea washed over him as he thought back over all that he'd just seen.

His thoughts drifted to the other things that Inara had told him, that Simon and River had been created. He wanted to deny the fact that it could be true but a horde of memories invaded his brain and wouldn't let him dismiss the idea. He thought back over the way River had moved in the Maidenhead. True she'd obviously had combat training, but some of the things she'd done had seemed beyond human now that he thought back on it with that in mind. The fact that she'd single handedly killed so many Reavers was just one more piece of evidence. Once he allowed himself to think on it he realized that Simon had done things that seemed beyond human as well. After Miranda it had been less than a week before Simon was up and walking. There had been far too much going on at the time for Mal to think that was odd, but he'd never seen anyone recover so quickly from being gut shot.

An hour later Mal finally felt ready to leave his bunk and check on his crew. He hadn't locked Inara in her shuttle the night before but he had warned her to remain there until he could talk to River. Jayne was still asleep in his bunk and Mal left him alone figuring that since he'd been shot the day before he deserved a day to sleep in. Zoe was on the bridge in Wash's chair when Mal walked onto the bridge.

"Everything ok this morning Zo?" He asked as he walked up next to her.

"I suppose so sir. Everyone's accounted for and the Alliance hasn't caught up with us. Don't think they had enough time to call in for back up before River took em out." Zoe said hopefully.

"Good, hope it stays that way. What'd you do with the doc River knows?"

"Gave him a passenger dorm." Zoe answered.

"You just gave an Alliance doctor a nice cozy room and left him be?" Mal asked thinking Zoe was usually more cautious than that.

"Locked him in a passenger dorm after I disabled the comm unit." Zoe added giving Mal a smug look.

"Knew there was a reason you're my first mate." Mal complimented and laid a friendly hand on her shoulder.

"You seen River this morning?" Mal asked.

"She and Kaylee are in the infirmary with Simon."

"Thanks." Mal responded and hurried to the infirmary.

The first thing he heard from the infirmary was loud laughter, which surprised the Captain considering what had happened the day before. Simon was sitting up in bed when Mal entered the room. His face was still extremely ashen but Mal figured he looked pretty good for a man who just the day before had taken a swan dive off a catwalk onto a metal pole.

Kaylee and River were standing on either side of him and Joe was standing near them as well, all four of them had large smiles on their faces.

"What's so funny?" Mal asked trying to sound light and at ease.

"Oh Joe was just tellin us a story about River at the Academy." Kaylee said through her laughter.

"And it was a funny one?" Mal asked disbelievingly.

"Yeah she slipped a buncha the docs somethin to make em puke. Guess ya kinda had ta be here for the story but it was funny." Kaylee explained.

"I'll take yer word for it." Mal noticed that River's smile had evaporated from her face the moment he walked through the door and was replaced by a look of absolute terror.

"Kaylee, Joe ya mind given me a minute alone with River'n Simon?" Mal asked.

Kaylee glanced at River's face and quickly nodded hurrying from the room with Joe on her heels.

"Did you speak with Inara?" Simon asked. Mal could hear the anger and distain dripping from his voice.

"Yes. Now don't think I'm defendin her or nothin cause what she did was stupid and thoughtless, but I also don't think she did it to get River caught. Seems Inara had a client a few months back who worked for the Academy. She managed ta steal a whole data stick worth of information about River and you." Mal explained.

"About me? What did it say?" Simon asked.

"I'm thinkin yer gonna have to read em cause it's all medical stuff I didn't understand most of it. I didn't have much time to look through it and try to decipher what the files said."

Simon nodded; the look on his face fell somewhere between confusion and hope. He had always wanted to find information about what the Academy had done to River and it seemed like maybe now he had that information in his hands.

"So why exactly did Inara call our mother? It makes no sense." Simon asked.

"Seems some a the stuff she found in the files scared her pretty bad. She was confused and didn't want to tell any of us what she'd discovered. She thought maybe yer ma could help. Inara swears she didn't know yer ma was involved with the Academy."

"What exactly scared her so badly that she felt her only choice was to try and get help from my mother?" Simon asked not ready yet to let go of the anger he was feeling towards the Companion.

"Maybe you should go through the files and decide for yerself. I don't know if what she told me is even close to bein the truth." Mal suggested.

"How about you just tell me what Inara said? I'm not exactly up for studying complicated medical files right now, what with the whole getting impaled thing." Simon joked sarcastically.

Mal sighed in frustration. This was not a conversation he wanted to be having. He glanced over to River and saw that she still had that look of terror on her face. It was then that it occurred to him that River most likely knew what he'd seen the night before. Mal thought back to when he'd been in an Alliance prison after the war and he remembered the things done to him. He wasn't sure how the hell he would feel if River was given tapes of that to watch. He walked to River and slipped his hand into hers, trying hard to keep only his love for her and understanding in his mind. River squeezed his hand in return and offered him a small tight smile.

"Seems that the info in them files says that you and River's parents aren't really your parents." Mal began.

"Not our parents? But that's not possible." Simon protested.

"If yer gonna argue with everything I say this is gonna take a long time." Mal lectured and Simon immediately shut his mouth.

"So from what Inara gathered you and River were both Alliance experiments. Messed with yer genes or something ta make you stronger and smarter. Said yer parents were given ya after you was born." Mal explained knowing how ridiculous it sounded.

"But that's impossible. I mean for one thing I was ten years old when River was born. I remember our mother being pregnant with her. Plus I'm not faster or stronger than any other person, maybe a little smarter, but intelligence runs in our family. And I've done full blood work ups on every member of this crew. If River and I had our genes manipulated don't you think I would have seen something in our blood?" Simon finished and laid his head back, the rant had taken a lot out of him.

"I don't know about all that Simon. I'm just tellin' ya what Nara told me." Mal said defending himself.

"Fake it was all fake. We're fake." River mumbled under her breath.

"Mei-mei don't say that. It's not true. I'm sure of it." Simon comforted.

Mal wrapped an arm around River and pulled her to him, he could feel her shoulders shaking slightly beneath his arm. River stiffened suddenly in his arms and pulled away quickly running from the room. Mal turned to follow her and then figured he should probably tell Simon what else he had seen on the data stick.

"Doc I gotta tell ya what else I saw in them files. Think its what's upsetting her right now." Mal said uncomfortably.

"Something worse than telling us we're genetic freaks created in a lab?" Simon asked.

"There's a whole file of River at the Academy, video of her."

"What kind of video?"

"Just her in a room talkin with some doctor. The video starts before she started going to the school and the last one…"

"The last one what?" Simon asked impatiently.

"She killed the Doc, the one who did all the interviewing. Stabbed him in the neck with a pen." Mal finally managed to spit out.

Simon was silent for a few minutes trying to absorb everything.

"I want to see the videos." He finally said.

"Maybe you should ask yer sis first. I'm thinkin' I shoulda done the same before I watched em. The videos are horrible, watching her get worse and worse and knowing what they were doin to her. Could barely stomach it myself." Mal grimaced.

"I still want to see them. But maybe you're right it should be River's decision." Simon acquiesced.

"I'm gonna go check on her. You gonna be alright?" Mal asked.

"I'm not sure. It's been a very strange few days." Simon replied.

Mal turned away from the doctor to leave the room, but stopped and turned back.

"You think yer mom would do that? I mean you think it's possible that she was behind the Academy?" Mal asked.

"I wish I could say no, but I really don't know. I never could understand my parent's reluctance to see that River was in trouble. It was obvious that something was wrong with the Academy, but they were so unwilling to listen. Maybe that's because they were perfectly aware of what was going on the whole time."

"But could yer ma even be behind something like that? What did she do for a living?" Mal asked realizing how little he knew about the people who would one day be his in-laws.

"Both my parents were in the medical field and worked for the Alliance. My fathers had a general practice and my mother mainly worked in research."

"Genetic research?" Mal asked.

"I don't really know. She really didn't talk about her work, but mainly she was involved in immunization research. Finding cures for diseases."

"Sounds like noble work." Mal complimented.

"Unless it was all a lie." Simon replied bitterly.

Mal wanted to say something to comfort Simon, but could honestly think of nothing that would help.

"Look I'll bring up the files so you can go through them when you feel up to it. You should talk to that Alliance doc that River knows from the Academy. It's likely he'll have some information." Mal suggested.

He found River in the cargo bay, huddled inside one of the secret holds; like she had been apt to do before Miranda.

"Hey there bao-bei whatcha doin in here?" Mal asked and climbed into the hold with her.

River didn't respond or acknowledge his presence in any way. It scared Mal to see how much she looked like she had in her worst days.

"Come on River we need ta talk about this." Mal pleaded and pushed her hair out of her face so that he could see her eyes.

"We were so happy last night. Now it's all gone." She whispered.

"Hey I don't wanna hear you say that ever again. Nothings changed tween us dong ma. You and me are still the same as we were last night." Mal assured her.

"You won't want her anymore. She's a freak, not a real girl."

"River it don't matter what them files say, I know who you are. Wherever you came from, you're here now with me and that's all that matters."

"You watched the tape, doesn't it scare you? You saw what they did to me and what I did to them." River asked.

"The hun-dan deserved it bao-bei. They all deserved so much more than that. I'm glad ya killed him."

"I don't remember it. Not really. Much of my time at the Academy is a confused blur." River explained.

"Simon wants to watch the files. You think that's somethin' you might let him do?" Mal asked.

"I don't want him to see me like that, but I think he deserves to see it. He sacrificed so much to get me out. I want him to know what it was that he saved me from." River said thoughtfully.

"What about Inara? Do you think it's safe for her to be around you?"

"Yes. She wasn't trying to be malicious she was simply scared. I don't blame her for that."

River crawled over to Mal and curled herself into his lap, drawing strength from his mind.

"What do we do now?" She asked sounding more like the River he loved so much.

"Stay in the Black for as long as we can. The more we move the less chance there is for the Alliance to catch up with us. I say we let Simon go through the files and make a decision once he's done. You want me to drop Inara at the next planet we come to?"

River gave Mal a surprised look.

"You would do that?" River asked.

"Well I wouldn't like it, but I can understand if you couldn't have her onboard anymore. She did something that nearly got yer brother killed, you sent back to the Academy, and the rest of us arrested. If you can't forgive her for that it wouldn't be a surprise."

River contemplated Mal's words for a moment before answering.

"I wish her to stay. She contacted my mother out of fear and the desire to help. And she risked her job and her freedom to steal the information that she believed would help me. I can't forget that. Everyone makes mistakes. Even the terrible ones deserve to be forgiven."

Mal smiled and kissed River gently.

"Ya know River Tam you are one amazing woman. You know that? Can't wait for ya ta be my wife."

"Even if I'm not real?" She asked.

Mal leaned over and pinched her arm, not enough to bruise but hard enough to make her jump.

"Ow!" She yelled and gave him an annoyed look.

"Ya seem purty damn real ta me. No matter how you were made or who did the making don't matter none ta me. I know exactly who ya are. Yer my girl and that's the only thing that matters to me." He whispered gently and pulled her in for another long kiss.