F: Brought to the Edge and Always Crossing the Lines (1/4)
Fandom: Firefly
Main characters: Simon, River, Mal, Kaylee, Zoe, Tracey, Jayne, Inara, Book, Wash, OCs
Referenced characters: Simon's parents
Pairings: Implied Tracey/Kaylee (and Simon/River depending on your interpretation; it's not what I intended)
Contains: Angst, AU, violence
Rating: PG13
Summary: Simon began by searching for someone to help him save River. When he failed to save her, he decided he would go to any lengths to get a second chance. In the course of things, he finds himself on Serenity anyway. He is not particularly welcome, but that doesn't matter. Only River matters.
Notes: This is my![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
firefly_bigbang! Let's pretend I haven't cocked up a million times in the course of this! Thank you primarily to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
feywood, for the beta and the encouragement; thank you also to auroraprimavera for the encouragement. Thank you, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yvi, for being so patient with my cock-ups! ♥ Title from Seth Lakeman's song, Circle Grows. Split into parts merely because it's too long for LJ to handle.
Art: Here.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV
"If this was a fairytale, you'd be a prince," River said, dreamily. She lay in her bed, looking for all the world like something from one of the old fragments of movies from Earth-that-was. Like a princess, lying on crisp and cool sheets, her hair spilling out under her, waving out around her head like a dark halo, a dark pool. There was a princess, Simon thought, who needed to be kissed to be woken from an enchanted sleep. "Prince Simon. My prince."
River looked like that princess, whoever she was.
"You'd have to be a princess, then, meimei," he said. He went to sit beside her, leaning over her a little. His eyes crinkled with his smile and he slipped his hand into hers. "And since I'm your brother, of course I'd be a prince. Do you think Father would make a good king?"
"You'd be my prince," she told him. She moved to sit up, propping herself on one arm, tilting her head at him. "You'd come and save me, wouldn't you?"
"You know I'd do anything for you. You're my sister."
"One day, you'll have to," she said. She wasn't looking at him, but up at the ceiling, and Simon felt a quick brief chill, like an omen. He shook it off and tried to smile again, tried to beat back the chill with warmth and light. To be her prince.
"Don't pick too high a tower to be trapped in, I'm not good at climbing."
"You'd do anything for me, it doesn't matter how high the tower is. And you'll do anything for me, if you have to. You'd learn to climb," she said, not any lighter than before, but then she sat up and smiled and moved, made space. "Come here. Warm me up."
"It's not that cold," Simon said, smiling again, but he moved to her, crawling into bed beside her and putting his arms around her. She was cold; the sheets felt a little damp with the chill. He trapped her feet between his legs, wrapped his arms around her waist. "Better?"
"Mm."
He held her, just like that. He found himself running his fingers through her hair, over and over again, soothing. He found himself unable to look away from her, unable to stop thinking about the way she curled into him, the way she trusted him. He thought about someone taking her away -- and it was stupid, because there was no one, no one would dare and he wouldn't let anyone take her away, but the thought wouldn't be dismissed. She relaxed against him, closed her eyes, and for a moment he thought she was sleeping.
"You're leaving soon," she said, resting her head against his shoulder. "Then we can't do this anymore."
"I'll come home and see you."
"It won't be the same. You'll be all grown up."
Simon looked at her, at her face and her hair and the way she was changing right in front of his eyes, so that every day he was startled by something -- her longer legs, or the changing shape of her, the way her face had sharpened into focus somehow. "So will you."
There was warmth in the bed now, warmth between them, and she stroked his face and rolled her eyes and laughed, and she was just River, beautiful River, and he tickled her and she rolled them off the bed in a heap of covers and pillows and limbs, and everything was warm and bright and okay.
"Besides," he said, pinning her under him. "I'm not going away that soon. Six months. Six months still to go. And I won't be far away."
"I know," River said, and wriggled, writhed her body like a snake, and somehow ended up on top. She didn't try to tickle him though, but pressed into him, buried her face in his shoulder. "I know."
---
"Simon!"
For a moment, it really did feel as though nothing had changed. River spilled out of the front door and ran to him -- she was taller, and her hair was longer, and her hold on him was stronger, but things were really almost the same. Simon held onto her very tightly, and she held onto him just as tightly, almost fiercely, craning up a little and tugging him down and resting their foreheads together.
"Simon," she said, brightly, and he held her tightly.
"River," he said, quieter, softer, but oh, just as bright and warm.
"Welcome home," she said, hugging him tighter and tighter until he had to pull back, breathless, laughing.
Things had changed, he found, but not so much. Their parents were just the same, and they ate the same food they always had. Things had moved, but not far; River moved with a different kind of grace, growing into her own body perfectly, but she'd always been graceful. There were new books in the house, but they were on the same subjects as always. He still felt like it was home, as if he'd never really left.
That night, River stole into his room, curled herself into his body -- just the same as always. He stroked her hair. "You were wrong, I haven't changed," he said, smiling. She shook her head.
"I haven't been proved right yet," she said, lying very still in his arms. "You will leave, someday."
"I'll come back."
"Maybe I won't be here then."
"River..."
"Sorry," she whispered, and curled into his arms. He held her close, suddenly feeling like she might leave, slip out of his arms at any time. He tried to think of something to make her laugh, to bring the familiar light to her eyes. Then, "If I'm not here, you can come and bring me back."
"I will," he said, not sure what he was promising, only knowing he had to.
She smiled again. "I know."
---
The day she left, River looked more like a princess than ever. It wasn't the clothes -- the skirt was long and whirled out around her, yes, but it was the look in her eyes more than anything, and the way her hair looked, and the way she already seemed far away. Further away than ever before, further away than she'd been when he left for MedAcad, further than she'd been the times he came home to see her. Then it'd only been a few steps between them, it seemed. A distance easily closed.
She hugged him with something like decorum, and he could smell the wildflowers of her shampoo and the spring-like tang of perfume -- she'd never worn perfume before. "I'll miss you," she said, but there was excitement running like a quick stream under her words, and her thoughts were already elsewhere. He'd expected little different, in fact. He'd known how much she wanted this, and they hadn't been as close for a long time.
"Don't forget me, meimei," he said, not entirely teasing, and she did laugh and kiss him then.
"Simon," she said, fondly, but then their parents were there and some of her friends, all ready to see her off, and she fluttered among them, bright like a butterfly, smiling.
"You have to let her go sometime," his father said, not unwarmly, not unkindly, and Simon nodded.
"I know."
---
He stuck out like a sore thumb. Even his worst clothes were neat and clean, so neat and clean and well-kept that they'd never needed mending, never needed so much as a stitch or a button replaced. He didn't think he'd ever owned anything that needed to be mended. His hair was neatly combed, he was clean-shaven; he was just plain clean, as if the grime of the streets couldn't stick to him. Even his shoes were clean, even shiny: no mud splattered them, no damp dirty spots marred his trousers. He'd have looked the same wearing jeans, probably, looked the same if he hadn't shaved before leaving his house, if he'd neglected to comb his hair. He looked rich, and there was just about nothing he could do about that.
It was the way he talked, too -- he'd reach out a hand to an old woman, politely just keeping from actually touching, smile, and ask, "Do you know where I could find -- ?"
And she would stare at him, take a step out of his range and say no, she didn't know, there was nothin' like that going on around 'ere, and hadn't he better go back to his part o' the world?
Osiris was, of course, a core planet, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. But every place had its underside, even Alliance-run planets like Osiris, and the area of the city Simon needed to be in was where the poorer people lived, where the debtors fetched up when they'd lost everything, where everyone who didn't quite fit into the Alliance's plans ended up.
Where the rebel elements lived, if you listened to the news, where everyone was anti-Alliance and eager to spread sedition.
Simon wasn't finding much of that.
There'd been another letter that morning, another code, but the same message. More desperate now, maybe, River's looped and curling writing just a little more exaggerated, as if she wanted to scream at him, scream for him. He sensed the panic, anyway. He wondered if she'd got his letters in response. He wondered if she knew, if she would guess, what he's trying to do.
She would probably laugh at him. She'd probably have managed this so easily -- a smile here, a light touch to an old lady's arm, a little twirl. They'd have fallen in love with her in an instant and given her whatever she asked for. Everybody always did, after all. That wasn't jealousy, just the truth. She'd done the same with him, after all: his heart was probably the first she'd stolen.
He was smiling, just to think of her, when he heard the cry. He didn't know what had happened, but it was the kind of cry that could never fail to catch his attention, something in it that told him all he needed to know. He ran up the street, heedless of shiny shoes or fancy pressed trousers. Heedless of manners, even, dodging in and out of the people there, not stopping to wonder what they might think of him. He went down in the road beside a fallen body -- a skinny little thing, a child -- and hardly needed to look to know that he was right, that this one was for him. "Call an ambulance," he said, breathless but crisp. He was already moving to check the child over, not moving her in case it was some kind of accident, feeling for a pulse, for breath, for broken bones.
Nobody else moved. There was someone sobbing, probably a mother. He didn't look up.
"An ambulance," he said again, slowly turning the child onto her back, supporting her. Nobody even moved to help. He didn't look up, not yet, leaned down to breathe life into the girl, his hand always on her heart, testing, checking. He looked up after a moment, his eyes flashing. "Why won't any of you lift a finger to help this girl?"
"There's no point," someone said, without even the sense to look shame-faced.
"An ambulance could take her to hospital, they'd have the right equipment, she wouldn't even be in any danger. I can't do much for her here."
There was contempt in the reply. "Yeah, right. The ambulance won't even come to this part of town. It look like we're made o' money?"
"But -- "
"Can you do anything, doctor?"
Simon looked up. The mother, he guessed, from the look of her face, pale and bright red in patches, tearstained. Her eyes were open wide, and still swimming with tears. She was breathing hard. He noted all this in the way he always did when he had to, logging all the details perfectly in a glance, trying to match them up with solutions. He didn't answer, not right away, but leant down again to breathe for the girl, feeding her struggling lungs. He refused to look up again.
"Nobody is going to die," he said, firmly, in his doctor-voice, the one that makes people believe everything is going to be just fine. The voice that would make people believe that if the hospital were falling down around his ears.
The child was thin. Brittle. Simon was firm, stubborn, practised, angry.
It didn't, in fact, take him very long, despite what he'd said.
"Take her to the hospital," he said, getting up. He didn't bother trying to brush the dirt from his clothes. "Tell them Doctor Simon Tam sent you, and to take it out of my wages if they have to."
He didn't wait for a response to that. He'd expected something -- a thank you, maybe, a smile. But nobody said anything, and the small crowd that had collected around him parted to let him through almost in silence. He didn't know what they thought of it, whether they loved him for intervening or hated him for his condescension. It didn't even matter. "Could you tell me -- " he started, halfway down the street, but the other man gave him a resentful look and pushed on by without waiting to hear the rest.
Simon shut his mouth and didn't try to ask again. Not that day. He put his hand in his pocket, though, felt the crisp edges of the latest letter, not yet going dog-eared and tattered like the previous ones.
"I will find you, River," he said, quietly. "I'm coming."
It was stupid, to talk aloud like that. She couldn't hear. He felt stupid, saying it. But if he didn't say it, he might have to scream.
His shift started in thirty minutes, though, and he was a mess. He hurried, then, hurried back to his home -- resentful of its quiet good taste, almost annoyed by the carefully pressed clothes he found waiting there to change into.
But he did change into them, all the same, feeling like they pulled him back into shape, smoothed the slightly roughened edges. They were a comfort, too.
---
"We simply don't have the resources to deal with the people who can't afford to pay. If they can't be bothered to work for a living, then we shouldn't help them live a life of laziness. Everybody has to work. There are plenty of jobs -- the Alliance has seen to that -- and if they can't get along here, they can always take the chance of colonising the border planets."
There was a mumble of agreement, but Simon cleared his throat. He tried not to flinch at the sudden weight of surprised attention. "I believe you're over-simplifying the situation. There are jobs, but they require certain skills these people haven't had chance to acquire, or they'd require them to live away from their families, or move across Osiris and uproot their whole family. I don't believe any of these people are poor by choice. Who would be? They're poor because we don't take the time to help them. Because the way we live keeps them that way."
"Have you seen the way they live, Tam? It's -- "
"It's better than some places, but in comparison to us, it's pathetic." Simon stood up, leaning over the table a little, braced on his hands. His eyes were serious, focused. "I've been there often, to speak to people of my acquaintance. The last time I was there, a child nearly died and nobody lifted a finger to call an ambulance, because the ambulance wouldn't even come to that part of town. It's disgusting. Isn't it our duty to help people?"
"We have a duty to help people who are worthy of help," another doctor began, and then faltered at Simon's look.
"We treat prisoners in the Osiris prisons and not these poor people in the Osiris slums? Which of them are more deserving? Are you going to say the prisoners, really?"
There was another burst of talk -- someone tried to tell him they appreciated his viewpoint, but, but, but, while others wondered loudly about how he spent his time and why he might have been down in those poor areas, and one pointed out that it was alright for him to talk, but --
"What are your salaries?" Simon asked, suddenly, loud enough to interrupt them all. "I know I could spare the greatest part of mine, if I had to. Not that I want to, but if it would help other people...?"
"Very noble of you, I'm sure," someone said, and then they were interrupted and it all began again. Simon listened to it with his eyes narrowed, jaw clenched. River would have called it his look of righteous indignation, and perhaps teased him. She would have agreed, though, she would have said he was right. Perhaps she would have elbowed him -- she had such bony elbows -- and told him it was about time he saw it.
He always felt stupid and slow, beside River. Beside even the shadow of River he carried around in his head.
"There's nothing to be gained from this," one of the older doctors said, very loudly. "There's nothing we can do." His eyes pierced Simon. "You're a promising young doctor, Tam, but if I were you, I'd take care to stay... well, to stay out of politics."
"This isn't politics. This is human decency. Human rights."
"Are you saying that the Alliance isn't good enough for you, young man?"
Their eyes all stabbed into him at the same time. Simon clenched his hands in his pockets, crushing the letter from River, that incriminating innocent desperate letter. "No," he said, and it wasn't exactly a lie. The Alliance wasn't good enough for anybody. Not when it treated the lowest common denominator with such contempt. Not when his sister --
But he did, after all, keep his mouth shut after that. Because all thoughts led to River, and he knew that he needed money, he needed more time, he needed more luck... He needed more, and angering the Alliance and ending up on the run wouldn't help anyone.
---
Simon took his jacket off, smoothing out a crease, and hung it up carefully. He took his shoes off, too, sighing at the relief. He'd walked all day through the poorer parts of the city, spoken to everyone that so much as met his eyes for a moment, and -- nothing. He'd ventured into one of the zones that should've been forbidden to him, he'd almost got punched by a man in a bar, and he'd seen just about enough of dirt and bruises and poverty for one day. He'd known about it -- he'd always known -- but now he'd seen and he couldn't unsee it. He'd been angry, but -- now he was mostly just tired. He just wanted to lie down, possibly just after having a nice hot shower, and slipping into some fresh clothes. Possibly after having some good dinner.
The letter in his pocket had become like receipt-paper now, thin and worn, dirty, dog-eared. He pulled it out of his pocket and smoothed it out, just one more time, looked down at River's slanted looping writing. There was definitely desperation in the swirling 'S' for Simon; there was a despair in the sharp curves of her signature, there at the bottom. "I'm trying, River," he said, stupidly, to the letter and to the capture he kept of her, there on his table. "I'm really trying."
And he thought she'd have smiled at him, touched his hair, made some kind of impish face, but he was beginning to think, too, that even that wouldn't have made it okay. It wasn't just the loss of her that made it hard. It was everything he was seeing for her sake. The dirt and the poverty and the people, the suspicious and worn and desperate people he'd ignored all his life, and was just now beginning to see. There was even a feeling, somewhere pushed down hard and tacked in tight, something he was trying not to really think about, that compared to all of this -- compared to everything he was seeing now -- the state River was in wasn't very important. Or, at least, that it was only a priority to people who knew River.
There were obviously a lot more people who were or who knew people who were horrifically poor.
If he let himself, Simon would feel selfish and sick. Instead, he made himself dinner. He didn't bother to be imaginative about it; he found a pre-made meal, about to go out of date, and shoved it in the oven to heat up. He ignored the news, didn't bother to turn the tv on or check the Cortex for messages. He didn't particularly want to find out about what else had gone wrong on small barely terraformed moons in another part of the system. He didn't want to hear about terrorist attacks. He didn't want to hear any of it. He wanted to relax. He wanted to think about something that wasn't River, just for an evening, just for a moment.
He couldn't keep himself from feeling selfish about that one.
"I don't know what to do," he told the capture, and River just smiled at him from it, blank and cool and faraway. He looked away again.
He'd just sat down to eat when there was a beep to notify him of an incoming call. He expected it to be his father -- probably having heard of the 'little disagreement' he'd had with the other doctors, probably ready to scold him. Ready to put his mother on the phone to shame him, even. Gabriel Tam wasn't above engineering things so that his mother's disappointment got to him instead of a lecture. He didn't even want to answer the phone.
It'd be worse if he didn't, though. He'd been disappointing his mother a lot, lately -- "you left work an hour early, Simon, how could you let them down like that?"; "Simon, they told your father that you'd arrived at work in a mess"; "Simon, are you still thinking about those silly letters?"; "Simon, you need to look after yourself, or people will be starting to wonder".
He wasn't so sure if it would be such a terrible thing if people did start to wonder. People didn't seem to do enough wondering, as far as he could see. Even he hadn't wondered all that much, really.
He accepted the call without even looking for the ID. "Hello?"
"Doctor Tam?"
An unfamiliar voice, that. Not his father's, or his mother's; it wasn't even an uncle's or a cousin's. There was the hint of an accent even just in those two words, an accent of the streets, of the poorer sector of Osiris. And yet -- not quite. It was a mixture, a muddle, maybe a deliberate confusion. "Speaking," he said, cautiously, half-suspicious -- though of what, he didn't know. It was an itch in the back of his mind, an instinct he had to listen to. "Who is this?"
"I hope you don't think I'm going to actually tell you my name. Unless you think your conversations are secure? Do you really think they go unmonitored, Doctor Tam?"
"You're using my name."
"Because it's the work of a moment -- or not even that -- to find out who owns the number I just called. Is there something you would prefer me to call you?" The other voice sounded a little amused. Indulgent.
"Simon," he said, confused. "Call me Simon."
"Simon, then. Do you honestly think this call is secure?"
"I encrypt -- "
"You've got the option to encrypt turned on," the caller said, sounding amused. "Provided by the government to pander to the petty concerns of the rich families of Osiris. Pacifying them. You don't think they'd put in a form of encryption they can't break easy as winking?"
"I... never thought about it."
"You're not a very cautious man, at times, Simon, despite your brains. You've been very incautious, in fact. You need to be more suspicious. The Alliance doesn't exactly take kindly to reform -- they know best, you know, about everything. A young doctor like you couldn't possibly have any ideas worth listening to, and drawing attention to yourself is a bad idea. Especially considering your sister."
"What about my sister? What do you know about my sister?"
"River Tam. Medium height. Dark hair, light skin. A dancer. Her IQ -- let's see now. This is the important thing, really. I don't have the exact number in front of me right now. Her IQ is something ridiculous, in any case: a little higher than yours, even, and I believe you are one of the most intelligent people on Osiris -- if IQ is anything to go by. She's very smart, isn't she? Let me guess. She tore through school and then turned around and asked if it was all that easy, whether anywhere would offer her some kind of challenge? And then she heard of a certain academy, sponsored by our benevolent government, where she could have a program specially tailored to her abilities..."
"I... How do you know all this?"
"When she got there, she sent you a few letters, I suppose?"
"Yes. What -- "
"Be patient, Simon, just have a little patience. You've managed to wait months without getting anywhere, don't get impatient now. We haven't got long, of course. After about five minutes, this call will be noticed, tracked, perhaps played back. But calls under five minutes -- well, we can't have made many terrible plans in that time, can we? And while you have some unorthodox ideas, and a tendency to poke your nose in where you shouldn't, it's no more than your average suspicious young rich boy. You could just be slumming. You're not under any suspicion at the moment. Short-sighted of them, I must say."
Simon bit his lip, hard, took a deep breath. "Get to the point. Why are you talking about my sister? All you seem to care about is the Alliance. You're talking as if..."
"As if I'm an Independent, maybe? A Browncoat? Well, you'll have to see the colour of my coat when we meet."
"When we meet?"
"Of course. We'll have to meet. I only have time to say a few more things, just now. For example, I could tell you that they really are hurting your sister. They're doing some awful things to your sister."
Even Simon couldn't say, after, exactly what flashed through his mind in that moment. Scientists, yes, but other things too -- people hurting her for the fun of it, people touching her... Or something else, something worse, something he couldn't even imagine... "What are they doing?" he asked, and didn't notice the crispness, the command, the doctor-voice. As if he was asking a patient to list symptoms, so that he could make a diagnosis...
"They're playing with her brain," the man said. "Our time is almost up, so all I can tell you now is that we're sympathetic to your plight. We've been watching you, we know what kind of man you are, and we've read about what they're doing to your sister, and it spells no good for her or us. Or anybody, for that matter. So don't think us without any self-interest in this. We're willing to help you get her out. Go about your life as usual for another week -- including your little slumming trips, your little forays into the blackout zones. Do not change anything about your normal routine. Now, more than at any other time, everything has to go on just as usual, and you can't appear to have made any progress. Nor can you appear to have given up: nobody would find that convincing, coming from you. We'll contact you again in a week's time. It won't be by phone. Do you understand, Simon?"
"Alright," Simon said, and then, "Wait, how -- "
But the man had gone. Simon bit his lip again, hard, harder, almost tasting blood.
Whatever it was, whatever was happening, it was more hope than he'd had in a long time. Or what felt like a long time, anyway.
His dinner was cold. He ate it anyway, with perhaps a flicker of a thought about the people in the poorer areas of Osiris, the ones that might've been glad to have such a fancy dinner, even if it came out of a packet and had been heated up in five minutes flat and cooled just about as fast. The people who would have no meal tonight.
Mostly, he thought about River, though. River, and her quick smile, River, and her light feet. River, and the scientists messing with her brain, hurting her... Himself saving River, and an unsettling random image of River as a princess, himself as a prince, that he squashed down fast: too much hope, there, too much childish hope.
He didn't think it was going to be a night for sleep, really. He found his coat and went back to the hospital.
---
He'd been waiting two minutes. It felt like half an hour.
He felt conspicuous. He knew he stuck out like a sore thumb -- he always did, here -- even though he'd bought some cheaper clothes. That was one of the mistakes he'd made. His expensive clothes looked expensive even when they were worn out and worn down, soft with age. They'd been good fabrics to begin with. Now he feels strange in his cheap suit. He doesn't quite look the part even now, but he never could have done. He was pretty sure that this helped, though, this cheap suit, the kind of thing one of the Tams wouldn't be seen dead in.
He guessed he wasn't a Tam anymore, but that was okay. He thought of his father's face, and wondered what he'd been seeing there in the last days and weeks and months. Contempt? Contempt that his own son was falling into conspiracy theories and jumping at shadows? Or something worse, something that made Simon sick just to thinkabout -- complicity? Had he seen complicity in his father's eyes?
Five minutes. It felt like an hour, at least.
They'd promised Simon that this time, they really would tell him everything. Everything he needed to know, anyway. He wouldn't go back home again, this time -- he had a large suitcase, full of everything he could think of to want, and he'd had one of the poor families in the area looking after it for him for a couple of days, to keep any suspicion down. He imagined that the man he'd spoken to before, who always seemed to be either in a bad temper or a cutting one, snide and sneering, would think him an idiot for needing everything he'd brought with him -- clothes, shoes, a few captures, a few little treasures, a box of letters...
He wasn't going to leave it behind, though. He'd thought about people ransacking his home, looking for evidence; he'd thought about the scandal that would result. He'd packed his bag thinking of that more than anything. Not the things he couldn't bear to part with, but the things that might be evidence and the things that he couldn't stand thinking of as being pawed about by officers, being tossed about carelessly.
He'd planned as carefully as he could, but he had a feeling that all of it would be laughable to the man he was about to see. Well, let it be.
He didn't care.
"I'm coming, River," he said, softly, and gripped the handle of his suitcase harder, watching for the man -- his contact, like he was some kind of criminal, some kind of drug dealer.
Then he grinned, just a little. He was worse, after all. He was anti-Alliance.
Seven minutes. A minor eternity.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV
Main characters: Simon, River, Mal, Kaylee, Zoe, Tracey, Jayne, Inara, Book, Wash, OCs
Referenced characters: Simon's parents
Pairings: Implied Tracey/Kaylee (and Simon/River depending on your interpretation; it's not what I intended)
Contains: Angst, AU, violence
Rating: PG13
Summary: Simon began by searching for someone to help him save River. When he failed to save her, he decided he would go to any lengths to get a second chance. In the course of things, he finds himself on Serenity anyway. He is not particularly welcome, but that doesn't matter. Only River matters.
Notes: This is my
firefly_bigbang! Let's pretend I haven't cocked up a million times in the course of this! Thank you primarily to feywood, for the beta and the encouragement; thank you also to auroraprimavera for the encouragement. Thank you, yvi, for being so patient with my cock-ups! ♥ Title from Seth Lakeman's song, Circle Grows. Split into parts merely because it's too long for LJ to handle.Art: Here.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV
"If this was a fairytale, you'd be a prince," River said, dreamily. She lay in her bed, looking for all the world like something from one of the old fragments of movies from Earth-that-was. Like a princess, lying on crisp and cool sheets, her hair spilling out under her, waving out around her head like a dark halo, a dark pool. There was a princess, Simon thought, who needed to be kissed to be woken from an enchanted sleep. "Prince Simon. My prince."
River looked like that princess, whoever she was.
"You'd have to be a princess, then, meimei," he said. He went to sit beside her, leaning over her a little. His eyes crinkled with his smile and he slipped his hand into hers. "And since I'm your brother, of course I'd be a prince. Do you think Father would make a good king?"
"You'd be my prince," she told him. She moved to sit up, propping herself on one arm, tilting her head at him. "You'd come and save me, wouldn't you?"
"You know I'd do anything for you. You're my sister."
"One day, you'll have to," she said. She wasn't looking at him, but up at the ceiling, and Simon felt a quick brief chill, like an omen. He shook it off and tried to smile again, tried to beat back the chill with warmth and light. To be her prince.
"Don't pick too high a tower to be trapped in, I'm not good at climbing."
"You'd do anything for me, it doesn't matter how high the tower is. And you'll do anything for me, if you have to. You'd learn to climb," she said, not any lighter than before, but then she sat up and smiled and moved, made space. "Come here. Warm me up."
"It's not that cold," Simon said, smiling again, but he moved to her, crawling into bed beside her and putting his arms around her. She was cold; the sheets felt a little damp with the chill. He trapped her feet between his legs, wrapped his arms around her waist. "Better?"
"Mm."
He held her, just like that. He found himself running his fingers through her hair, over and over again, soothing. He found himself unable to look away from her, unable to stop thinking about the way she curled into him, the way she trusted him. He thought about someone taking her away -- and it was stupid, because there was no one, no one would dare and he wouldn't let anyone take her away, but the thought wouldn't be dismissed. She relaxed against him, closed her eyes, and for a moment he thought she was sleeping.
"You're leaving soon," she said, resting her head against his shoulder. "Then we can't do this anymore."
"I'll come home and see you."
"It won't be the same. You'll be all grown up."
Simon looked at her, at her face and her hair and the way she was changing right in front of his eyes, so that every day he was startled by something -- her longer legs, or the changing shape of her, the way her face had sharpened into focus somehow. "So will you."
There was warmth in the bed now, warmth between them, and she stroked his face and rolled her eyes and laughed, and she was just River, beautiful River, and he tickled her and she rolled them off the bed in a heap of covers and pillows and limbs, and everything was warm and bright and okay.
"Besides," he said, pinning her under him. "I'm not going away that soon. Six months. Six months still to go. And I won't be far away."
"I know," River said, and wriggled, writhed her body like a snake, and somehow ended up on top. She didn't try to tickle him though, but pressed into him, buried her face in his shoulder. "I know."
"Simon!"
For a moment, it really did feel as though nothing had changed. River spilled out of the front door and ran to him -- she was taller, and her hair was longer, and her hold on him was stronger, but things were really almost the same. Simon held onto her very tightly, and she held onto him just as tightly, almost fiercely, craning up a little and tugging him down and resting their foreheads together.
"Simon," she said, brightly, and he held her tightly.
"River," he said, quieter, softer, but oh, just as bright and warm.
"Welcome home," she said, hugging him tighter and tighter until he had to pull back, breathless, laughing.
Things had changed, he found, but not so much. Their parents were just the same, and they ate the same food they always had. Things had moved, but not far; River moved with a different kind of grace, growing into her own body perfectly, but she'd always been graceful. There were new books in the house, but they were on the same subjects as always. He still felt like it was home, as if he'd never really left.
That night, River stole into his room, curled herself into his body -- just the same as always. He stroked her hair. "You were wrong, I haven't changed," he said, smiling. She shook her head.
"I haven't been proved right yet," she said, lying very still in his arms. "You will leave, someday."
"I'll come back."
"Maybe I won't be here then."
"River..."
"Sorry," she whispered, and curled into his arms. He held her close, suddenly feeling like she might leave, slip out of his arms at any time. He tried to think of something to make her laugh, to bring the familiar light to her eyes. Then, "If I'm not here, you can come and bring me back."
"I will," he said, not sure what he was promising, only knowing he had to.
She smiled again. "I know."
The day she left, River looked more like a princess than ever. It wasn't the clothes -- the skirt was long and whirled out around her, yes, but it was the look in her eyes more than anything, and the way her hair looked, and the way she already seemed far away. Further away than ever before, further away than she'd been when he left for MedAcad, further than she'd been the times he came home to see her. Then it'd only been a few steps between them, it seemed. A distance easily closed.
She hugged him with something like decorum, and he could smell the wildflowers of her shampoo and the spring-like tang of perfume -- she'd never worn perfume before. "I'll miss you," she said, but there was excitement running like a quick stream under her words, and her thoughts were already elsewhere. He'd expected little different, in fact. He'd known how much she wanted this, and they hadn't been as close for a long time.
"Don't forget me, meimei," he said, not entirely teasing, and she did laugh and kiss him then.
"Simon," she said, fondly, but then their parents were there and some of her friends, all ready to see her off, and she fluttered among them, bright like a butterfly, smiling.
"You have to let her go sometime," his father said, not unwarmly, not unkindly, and Simon nodded.
"I know."
He stuck out like a sore thumb. Even his worst clothes were neat and clean, so neat and clean and well-kept that they'd never needed mending, never needed so much as a stitch or a button replaced. He didn't think he'd ever owned anything that needed to be mended. His hair was neatly combed, he was clean-shaven; he was just plain clean, as if the grime of the streets couldn't stick to him. Even his shoes were clean, even shiny: no mud splattered them, no damp dirty spots marred his trousers. He'd have looked the same wearing jeans, probably, looked the same if he hadn't shaved before leaving his house, if he'd neglected to comb his hair. He looked rich, and there was just about nothing he could do about that.
It was the way he talked, too -- he'd reach out a hand to an old woman, politely just keeping from actually touching, smile, and ask, "Do you know where I could find -- ?"
And she would stare at him, take a step out of his range and say no, she didn't know, there was nothin' like that going on around 'ere, and hadn't he better go back to his part o' the world?
Osiris was, of course, a core planet, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. But every place had its underside, even Alliance-run planets like Osiris, and the area of the city Simon needed to be in was where the poorer people lived, where the debtors fetched up when they'd lost everything, where everyone who didn't quite fit into the Alliance's plans ended up.
Where the rebel elements lived, if you listened to the news, where everyone was anti-Alliance and eager to spread sedition.
Simon wasn't finding much of that.
There'd been another letter that morning, another code, but the same message. More desperate now, maybe, River's looped and curling writing just a little more exaggerated, as if she wanted to scream at him, scream for him. He sensed the panic, anyway. He wondered if she'd got his letters in response. He wondered if she knew, if she would guess, what he's trying to do.
She would probably laugh at him. She'd probably have managed this so easily -- a smile here, a light touch to an old lady's arm, a little twirl. They'd have fallen in love with her in an instant and given her whatever she asked for. Everybody always did, after all. That wasn't jealousy, just the truth. She'd done the same with him, after all: his heart was probably the first she'd stolen.
He was smiling, just to think of her, when he heard the cry. He didn't know what had happened, but it was the kind of cry that could never fail to catch his attention, something in it that told him all he needed to know. He ran up the street, heedless of shiny shoes or fancy pressed trousers. Heedless of manners, even, dodging in and out of the people there, not stopping to wonder what they might think of him. He went down in the road beside a fallen body -- a skinny little thing, a child -- and hardly needed to look to know that he was right, that this one was for him. "Call an ambulance," he said, breathless but crisp. He was already moving to check the child over, not moving her in case it was some kind of accident, feeling for a pulse, for breath, for broken bones.
Nobody else moved. There was someone sobbing, probably a mother. He didn't look up.
"An ambulance," he said again, slowly turning the child onto her back, supporting her. Nobody even moved to help. He didn't look up, not yet, leaned down to breathe life into the girl, his hand always on her heart, testing, checking. He looked up after a moment, his eyes flashing. "Why won't any of you lift a finger to help this girl?"
"There's no point," someone said, without even the sense to look shame-faced.
"An ambulance could take her to hospital, they'd have the right equipment, she wouldn't even be in any danger. I can't do much for her here."
There was contempt in the reply. "Yeah, right. The ambulance won't even come to this part of town. It look like we're made o' money?"
"But -- "
"Can you do anything, doctor?"
Simon looked up. The mother, he guessed, from the look of her face, pale and bright red in patches, tearstained. Her eyes were open wide, and still swimming with tears. She was breathing hard. He noted all this in the way he always did when he had to, logging all the details perfectly in a glance, trying to match them up with solutions. He didn't answer, not right away, but leant down again to breathe for the girl, feeding her struggling lungs. He refused to look up again.
"Nobody is going to die," he said, firmly, in his doctor-voice, the one that makes people believe everything is going to be just fine. The voice that would make people believe that if the hospital were falling down around his ears.
The child was thin. Brittle. Simon was firm, stubborn, practised, angry.
It didn't, in fact, take him very long, despite what he'd said.
"Take her to the hospital," he said, getting up. He didn't bother trying to brush the dirt from his clothes. "Tell them Doctor Simon Tam sent you, and to take it out of my wages if they have to."
He didn't wait for a response to that. He'd expected something -- a thank you, maybe, a smile. But nobody said anything, and the small crowd that had collected around him parted to let him through almost in silence. He didn't know what they thought of it, whether they loved him for intervening or hated him for his condescension. It didn't even matter. "Could you tell me -- " he started, halfway down the street, but the other man gave him a resentful look and pushed on by without waiting to hear the rest.
Simon shut his mouth and didn't try to ask again. Not that day. He put his hand in his pocket, though, felt the crisp edges of the latest letter, not yet going dog-eared and tattered like the previous ones.
"I will find you, River," he said, quietly. "I'm coming."
It was stupid, to talk aloud like that. She couldn't hear. He felt stupid, saying it. But if he didn't say it, he might have to scream.
His shift started in thirty minutes, though, and he was a mess. He hurried, then, hurried back to his home -- resentful of its quiet good taste, almost annoyed by the carefully pressed clothes he found waiting there to change into.
But he did change into them, all the same, feeling like they pulled him back into shape, smoothed the slightly roughened edges. They were a comfort, too.
"We simply don't have the resources to deal with the people who can't afford to pay. If they can't be bothered to work for a living, then we shouldn't help them live a life of laziness. Everybody has to work. There are plenty of jobs -- the Alliance has seen to that -- and if they can't get along here, they can always take the chance of colonising the border planets."
There was a mumble of agreement, but Simon cleared his throat. He tried not to flinch at the sudden weight of surprised attention. "I believe you're over-simplifying the situation. There are jobs, but they require certain skills these people haven't had chance to acquire, or they'd require them to live away from their families, or move across Osiris and uproot their whole family. I don't believe any of these people are poor by choice. Who would be? They're poor because we don't take the time to help them. Because the way we live keeps them that way."
"Have you seen the way they live, Tam? It's -- "
"It's better than some places, but in comparison to us, it's pathetic." Simon stood up, leaning over the table a little, braced on his hands. His eyes were serious, focused. "I've been there often, to speak to people of my acquaintance. The last time I was there, a child nearly died and nobody lifted a finger to call an ambulance, because the ambulance wouldn't even come to that part of town. It's disgusting. Isn't it our duty to help people?"
"We have a duty to help people who are worthy of help," another doctor began, and then faltered at Simon's look.
"We treat prisoners in the Osiris prisons and not these poor people in the Osiris slums? Which of them are more deserving? Are you going to say the prisoners, really?"
There was another burst of talk -- someone tried to tell him they appreciated his viewpoint, but, but, but, while others wondered loudly about how he spent his time and why he might have been down in those poor areas, and one pointed out that it was alright for him to talk, but --
"What are your salaries?" Simon asked, suddenly, loud enough to interrupt them all. "I know I could spare the greatest part of mine, if I had to. Not that I want to, but if it would help other people...?"
"Very noble of you, I'm sure," someone said, and then they were interrupted and it all began again. Simon listened to it with his eyes narrowed, jaw clenched. River would have called it his look of righteous indignation, and perhaps teased him. She would have agreed, though, she would have said he was right. Perhaps she would have elbowed him -- she had such bony elbows -- and told him it was about time he saw it.
He always felt stupid and slow, beside River. Beside even the shadow of River he carried around in his head.
"There's nothing to be gained from this," one of the older doctors said, very loudly. "There's nothing we can do." His eyes pierced Simon. "You're a promising young doctor, Tam, but if I were you, I'd take care to stay... well, to stay out of politics."
"This isn't politics. This is human decency. Human rights."
"Are you saying that the Alliance isn't good enough for you, young man?"
Their eyes all stabbed into him at the same time. Simon clenched his hands in his pockets, crushing the letter from River, that incriminating innocent desperate letter. "No," he said, and it wasn't exactly a lie. The Alliance wasn't good enough for anybody. Not when it treated the lowest common denominator with such contempt. Not when his sister --
But he did, after all, keep his mouth shut after that. Because all thoughts led to River, and he knew that he needed money, he needed more time, he needed more luck... He needed more, and angering the Alliance and ending up on the run wouldn't help anyone.
Simon took his jacket off, smoothing out a crease, and hung it up carefully. He took his shoes off, too, sighing at the relief. He'd walked all day through the poorer parts of the city, spoken to everyone that so much as met his eyes for a moment, and -- nothing. He'd ventured into one of the zones that should've been forbidden to him, he'd almost got punched by a man in a bar, and he'd seen just about enough of dirt and bruises and poverty for one day. He'd known about it -- he'd always known -- but now he'd seen and he couldn't unsee it. He'd been angry, but -- now he was mostly just tired. He just wanted to lie down, possibly just after having a nice hot shower, and slipping into some fresh clothes. Possibly after having some good dinner.
The letter in his pocket had become like receipt-paper now, thin and worn, dirty, dog-eared. He pulled it out of his pocket and smoothed it out, just one more time, looked down at River's slanted looping writing. There was definitely desperation in the swirling 'S' for Simon; there was a despair in the sharp curves of her signature, there at the bottom. "I'm trying, River," he said, stupidly, to the letter and to the capture he kept of her, there on his table. "I'm really trying."
And he thought she'd have smiled at him, touched his hair, made some kind of impish face, but he was beginning to think, too, that even that wouldn't have made it okay. It wasn't just the loss of her that made it hard. It was everything he was seeing for her sake. The dirt and the poverty and the people, the suspicious and worn and desperate people he'd ignored all his life, and was just now beginning to see. There was even a feeling, somewhere pushed down hard and tacked in tight, something he was trying not to really think about, that compared to all of this -- compared to everything he was seeing now -- the state River was in wasn't very important. Or, at least, that it was only a priority to people who knew River.
There were obviously a lot more people who were or who knew people who were horrifically poor.
If he let himself, Simon would feel selfish and sick. Instead, he made himself dinner. He didn't bother to be imaginative about it; he found a pre-made meal, about to go out of date, and shoved it in the oven to heat up. He ignored the news, didn't bother to turn the tv on or check the Cortex for messages. He didn't particularly want to find out about what else had gone wrong on small barely terraformed moons in another part of the system. He didn't want to hear about terrorist attacks. He didn't want to hear any of it. He wanted to relax. He wanted to think about something that wasn't River, just for an evening, just for a moment.
He couldn't keep himself from feeling selfish about that one.
"I don't know what to do," he told the capture, and River just smiled at him from it, blank and cool and faraway. He looked away again.
He'd just sat down to eat when there was a beep to notify him of an incoming call. He expected it to be his father -- probably having heard of the 'little disagreement' he'd had with the other doctors, probably ready to scold him. Ready to put his mother on the phone to shame him, even. Gabriel Tam wasn't above engineering things so that his mother's disappointment got to him instead of a lecture. He didn't even want to answer the phone.
It'd be worse if he didn't, though. He'd been disappointing his mother a lot, lately -- "you left work an hour early, Simon, how could you let them down like that?"; "Simon, they told your father that you'd arrived at work in a mess"; "Simon, are you still thinking about those silly letters?"; "Simon, you need to look after yourself, or people will be starting to wonder".
He wasn't so sure if it would be such a terrible thing if people did start to wonder. People didn't seem to do enough wondering, as far as he could see. Even he hadn't wondered all that much, really.
He accepted the call without even looking for the ID. "Hello?"
"Doctor Tam?"
An unfamiliar voice, that. Not his father's, or his mother's; it wasn't even an uncle's or a cousin's. There was the hint of an accent even just in those two words, an accent of the streets, of the poorer sector of Osiris. And yet -- not quite. It was a mixture, a muddle, maybe a deliberate confusion. "Speaking," he said, cautiously, half-suspicious -- though of what, he didn't know. It was an itch in the back of his mind, an instinct he had to listen to. "Who is this?"
"I hope you don't think I'm going to actually tell you my name. Unless you think your conversations are secure? Do you really think they go unmonitored, Doctor Tam?"
"You're using my name."
"Because it's the work of a moment -- or not even that -- to find out who owns the number I just called. Is there something you would prefer me to call you?" The other voice sounded a little amused. Indulgent.
"Simon," he said, confused. "Call me Simon."
"Simon, then. Do you honestly think this call is secure?"
"I encrypt -- "
"You've got the option to encrypt turned on," the caller said, sounding amused. "Provided by the government to pander to the petty concerns of the rich families of Osiris. Pacifying them. You don't think they'd put in a form of encryption they can't break easy as winking?"
"I... never thought about it."
"You're not a very cautious man, at times, Simon, despite your brains. You've been very incautious, in fact. You need to be more suspicious. The Alliance doesn't exactly take kindly to reform -- they know best, you know, about everything. A young doctor like you couldn't possibly have any ideas worth listening to, and drawing attention to yourself is a bad idea. Especially considering your sister."
"What about my sister? What do you know about my sister?"
"River Tam. Medium height. Dark hair, light skin. A dancer. Her IQ -- let's see now. This is the important thing, really. I don't have the exact number in front of me right now. Her IQ is something ridiculous, in any case: a little higher than yours, even, and I believe you are one of the most intelligent people on Osiris -- if IQ is anything to go by. She's very smart, isn't she? Let me guess. She tore through school and then turned around and asked if it was all that easy, whether anywhere would offer her some kind of challenge? And then she heard of a certain academy, sponsored by our benevolent government, where she could have a program specially tailored to her abilities..."
"I... How do you know all this?"
"When she got there, she sent you a few letters, I suppose?"
"Yes. What -- "
"Be patient, Simon, just have a little patience. You've managed to wait months without getting anywhere, don't get impatient now. We haven't got long, of course. After about five minutes, this call will be noticed, tracked, perhaps played back. But calls under five minutes -- well, we can't have made many terrible plans in that time, can we? And while you have some unorthodox ideas, and a tendency to poke your nose in where you shouldn't, it's no more than your average suspicious young rich boy. You could just be slumming. You're not under any suspicion at the moment. Short-sighted of them, I must say."
Simon bit his lip, hard, took a deep breath. "Get to the point. Why are you talking about my sister? All you seem to care about is the Alliance. You're talking as if..."
"As if I'm an Independent, maybe? A Browncoat? Well, you'll have to see the colour of my coat when we meet."
"When we meet?"
"Of course. We'll have to meet. I only have time to say a few more things, just now. For example, I could tell you that they really are hurting your sister. They're doing some awful things to your sister."
Even Simon couldn't say, after, exactly what flashed through his mind in that moment. Scientists, yes, but other things too -- people hurting her for the fun of it, people touching her... Or something else, something worse, something he couldn't even imagine... "What are they doing?" he asked, and didn't notice the crispness, the command, the doctor-voice. As if he was asking a patient to list symptoms, so that he could make a diagnosis...
"They're playing with her brain," the man said. "Our time is almost up, so all I can tell you now is that we're sympathetic to your plight. We've been watching you, we know what kind of man you are, and we've read about what they're doing to your sister, and it spells no good for her or us. Or anybody, for that matter. So don't think us without any self-interest in this. We're willing to help you get her out. Go about your life as usual for another week -- including your little slumming trips, your little forays into the blackout zones. Do not change anything about your normal routine. Now, more than at any other time, everything has to go on just as usual, and you can't appear to have made any progress. Nor can you appear to have given up: nobody would find that convincing, coming from you. We'll contact you again in a week's time. It won't be by phone. Do you understand, Simon?"
"Alright," Simon said, and then, "Wait, how -- "
But the man had gone. Simon bit his lip again, hard, harder, almost tasting blood.
Whatever it was, whatever was happening, it was more hope than he'd had in a long time. Or what felt like a long time, anyway.
His dinner was cold. He ate it anyway, with perhaps a flicker of a thought about the people in the poorer areas of Osiris, the ones that might've been glad to have such a fancy dinner, even if it came out of a packet and had been heated up in five minutes flat and cooled just about as fast. The people who would have no meal tonight.
Mostly, he thought about River, though. River, and her quick smile, River, and her light feet. River, and the scientists messing with her brain, hurting her... Himself saving River, and an unsettling random image of River as a princess, himself as a prince, that he squashed down fast: too much hope, there, too much childish hope.
He didn't think it was going to be a night for sleep, really. He found his coat and went back to the hospital.
He'd been waiting two minutes. It felt like half an hour.
He felt conspicuous. He knew he stuck out like a sore thumb -- he always did, here -- even though he'd bought some cheaper clothes. That was one of the mistakes he'd made. His expensive clothes looked expensive even when they were worn out and worn down, soft with age. They'd been good fabrics to begin with. Now he feels strange in his cheap suit. He doesn't quite look the part even now, but he never could have done. He was pretty sure that this helped, though, this cheap suit, the kind of thing one of the Tams wouldn't be seen dead in.
He guessed he wasn't a Tam anymore, but that was okay. He thought of his father's face, and wondered what he'd been seeing there in the last days and weeks and months. Contempt? Contempt that his own son was falling into conspiracy theories and jumping at shadows? Or something worse, something that made Simon sick just to thinkabout -- complicity? Had he seen complicity in his father's eyes?
Five minutes. It felt like an hour, at least.
They'd promised Simon that this time, they really would tell him everything. Everything he needed to know, anyway. He wouldn't go back home again, this time -- he had a large suitcase, full of everything he could think of to want, and he'd had one of the poor families in the area looking after it for him for a couple of days, to keep any suspicion down. He imagined that the man he'd spoken to before, who always seemed to be either in a bad temper or a cutting one, snide and sneering, would think him an idiot for needing everything he'd brought with him -- clothes, shoes, a few captures, a few little treasures, a box of letters...
He wasn't going to leave it behind, though. He'd thought about people ransacking his home, looking for evidence; he'd thought about the scandal that would result. He'd packed his bag thinking of that more than anything. Not the things he couldn't bear to part with, but the things that might be evidence and the things that he couldn't stand thinking of as being pawed about by officers, being tossed about carelessly.
He'd planned as carefully as he could, but he had a feeling that all of it would be laughable to the man he was about to see. Well, let it be.
He didn't care.
"I'm coming, River," he said, softly, and gripped the handle of his suitcase harder, watching for the man -- his contact, like he was some kind of criminal, some kind of drug dealer.
Then he grinned, just a little. He was worse, after all. He was anti-Alliance.
Seven minutes. A minor eternity.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV