Chapter Seven: Where there is an ending.

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It was just then that the world exploded into a shower of blood and brain matter, River's corpse falling just to one side of him as the sound of the never-so-welcome gunshot echoed in his ears.

Mal's eyes tracked back to the doorway, to register Zoe, her gun now falling to the side, her face as carefully expressionless as she could make it. "Zoe?" he managed.

"Figure she was too busy being crazy to hear me, sir."

"Right." It was very few times ever in his life that he'd felt this much at a loss, and he was shifting about for something to say when he felt a draft and realized through the numbing shock that he was still indecently exposed. He'd never been one who much fell in for body shame, and had been perfectly able to see the amusement in Saffron dumping him bare assed in the desert – especially since they got the drop on her, in the end. This, however, was entirely different, and he felt a hot blush creeping up his face the like which he hadn't experienced in a good long time. To distract himself as he scrambled to get his clothing back in order, he asked, "Just how much of that did you hear, anyway?"

"Enough."

Zoe didn't seem inclined to expound upon that at all, and quite frankly, it wasn't something he really wanted much to talk about anyway. He put his effort for the moment towards getting up, which was greatly complicated by the state of his knee. He was bracing himself against the wall, trying to figure what they should do now when the point became moot. Whatever they might or might not have said further was interrupted by a cry of "I thought I heard ... RIVER!" and the doctor rushing into the room, running to his sister's body.

Internally, Mal winced. He and Simon still hadn't ever got to much like one another, but he had always felt a certain admiration for the way the boy looked after his sister, and between the fact that his sister was dead, and what they were going to have to tell him about why, he felt for the boy.

His eyes full of tears, and his face tight with anger, Simon looked back and forth between them, "Why? Why did you do this?"

"Girl went monkeyshit, attacked me. As straight out as she ever says anything, told me she was responsible for," he choked up for a a minute, still unable to entirely believe it, "Inara. And Kaylee."

Simon froze, "She was doing so well, though! Are you sure it wasn't some kind of, I don't know, delusion? Did you really have to shoot her?"

"Yes." Simon just blinked at Zoe's succinct answer, his mouth opening and closing without producing any sound.

"Wait, what about Kaylee? Did she say ...?"

"Not with any particulars," Mal said, limping his way over to one of the chairs. It was then that Simon seemed to realize for the first time that Mal was bloody and limping.

"What happened to you?"

Mal had a lot of sympathy for Simon, but he couldn't keep himself from giving the boy his best you're-a-complete-idiot glare, and said in a matching tone, "Your sister."

Simon still didn't really want to believe it, but his professionalism had him cornering Mal for an examination of his injuries. Although Simon didn't actually say anything to that effect, he wasn't really convinced until he went back over Kaylee's test results, looking for something that might have been caused intentionally. However much as he didn't want to believe what they'd told him, when he found a suspicious anomaly that led him to the realization that he was missing a significant quantity of a particular drug he had to accept it.

Luckily, an overdose of the drug was something he could counteract. Not easily, but it was possible with what he had stocked in the medbay. He had to admit to himself, however, that if he hadn't actually looked for something caused intentionally – which he never would have – he wouldn't have seen it, and Kaylee would most likely have never woken up again.

Kaylee got better, gradually, and because he'd had to confront the truth himself, Simon forgave Zoe for killing his sister. It didn't fix everything – they were now down a pilot completely now, which was extremely problematic. Mal and Zoe could both fly the ship to a certain extent, though neither could do anything fancy with it, and it didn't leave anyone free to fire Serenity up if a quick escape was needed. Yet they hadn't hired on a new pilot after Miranda because the idea of trusting some stranger was so far from possible then. Now, with what had happened with River who they thought they could trust, it was even worse.

They all agonized over the fact that they hadn't seen anything wrong with River, and had, in fact, thought she was getting better. None moreso than Simon. It strained his relationship with Kaylee, and even his belief in his own skills as a doctor, to an extent.

Kaylee wondered if there wasn't something she might have done to help River, to keep her grounded, or if there hadn't been some kind of message on the cortex that had triggered her again or something. Jayne had spun some kind of wild theory about the girl being sent on some mission to kill them all via her conditioning, and Kaylee had wanted to believe it, just so she didn't have to feel like River was to blame at all. Mal and Zoe would both say they knew it wasn't so, but would never explain why, which caused a fair few fights with all three of the remaining crew members.

It wasn't easy, and they had a lot of problems to sort through, but no one talked of leaving and they made due with what they had and with each other. It wasn't much, but it was enough.

They were still flying, after all.

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Author's Note: I decided to start 2024 by reading through all of my unpublished fanfic files and came back across this one, which has been sitting complete for a couple of years now. I was both never really sure anyone would enjoy it, and felt it should be creepier but was at a loss as how to make it so. It's been long enough I think it's time to call it done since I do think it's good enough to publish as-is. Feel free to let me know what you think.