F: Brought to the Edge and Always Crossing the Lines (4/4)
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
Simon wore soft shoes. It was the right choice. The floors were hard and shiny, but the soft shoes made little enough noise. He wasn't stupid. He knew he couldn't have made it into the complex without being found out. All he had to do was get far enough in, and appear enough of a threat, that they would send their best weapon against him. He didn't even have to be that showy, because they liked using their weapon. The only reason they wouldn't send it was if they thought that was really his goal.
There was always a chance that they would recognise him. But Simon had been considered dead a long time -- nobody had even been sure that the Resistance had safely extracted him after the first attempt. They'd been relatively sure he'd died. Which was careless, and unlike the Alliance, and Simon didn't discount the idea of them having a file on him still open just in case. They were good at covering their asses.
He worked carefully in any case, carefully placing charges, traps. He didn't expect anyone to fall into them, but he needed the appearance of it.
He didn't hear it coming. He hadn't expected to. It was some sixth sense that warned him, made him duck and roll away from the wall as a foot almost smashed through his head. The movement was converted as quickly as thought, the foot catching him in the ribs and sending him sprawling, ungraceful and uncontrolled.
"River," he wheezed. There was no time to catch his breath. No time to think. Thinking would be the deadliest thing of all. He focused on the charges, his mission.
The expression on River's face did not change -- there was no expression, just a smooth blankness. Her face was beautiful and doll-like. Simon focused on that, on the pain in his gut at seeing it. He thought he'd been ready for this, he'd watched those videos over and over again, but they hadn't caught the horror of it.
He rolled again, trying not to think or to plan, just rolling, getting out of the way of her foot. She did not try to kick again -- he didn't see where the knife came from, or whether she'd been holding it all along. He rolled again, taking a sharp breath.
It was only on pure luck that he was surviving so long. Nothing else. He'd thought he might have some hesitation to work with, some recognition, but River was a blank.
He rolled one more time, knowing that one way or the other it was the last. He rolled towards her, sharp and sudden, and caught her leg. She moved to kick, and he held on grimly. He only had to hold on long enough -- there, and he'd done it, he'd done it. He emptied the syringe into her vein, praying it would work as fast as he'd calculated, praying he'd got it just right.
She collapsed, her strings cut. There was an expression on her face, then -- almost one of surprise -- just before unconsciousness swept over her. He picked her up, then, feeling her weight lax in his arms. He held her tightly. "I told you I'd save you," he whispered. He felt unsteady. His heart was pounding. "I told you, River."
---
River was so light in his arms. Light, and cold, and he held her hard, trying to give her substance, trying to give her his warmth. Her head lolled against his shoulder. He felt sick, shaky with adrenaline. It was hard to believe he'd made it out -- that he was breathing in fresh air, that he was alive.
He wouldn't exactly had said unscathed.
Serenity was waiting for him. He'd almost expected them to be gone, somehow. He stumbled a little as he carried River on up into the hold. He didn't look into any of their faces, looked only where he was going, and carried River, so still.
"Is she alright?" Kaylee asked, reaching out to touch his arm. Simon walked right past her without seeing, cradling River. He tried not to jostle her, or smash her limbs against anything, as he carried her to the infirmary. He hadn't held her like this in a long time -- it was almost like a man carrying his bride over the threshold, he thought, giddily. Only without the guests, without the happy faces, without the friends and family to surround them.
"It went okay, then," the captain said, and caught his shoulder when he didn't reply. "Hey."
"It went as expected," Simon said, laying River down with infinite care. "Take us somewhere bright."
"Huh?"
"I have the choice of where you drop us off, don't I? That's what they paid for. Take us somewhere bright. Somewhere with flowers."
"Wash will know where to go."
"Ask Wash, then," Simon said, without looking up.
"Look, Doc, you got no call to be orderin' me around -- "
"Ask Wash, please."
Mal looked at him, and at River laying there so limp and pale, and nodded. His eyes narrowed a little. "She okay?"
"She's fine. She's safe now. Please, captain."
Mal watched him for a moment longer, eyes still narrowed, then he nodded. "Be glad to be rid of you," he said, turning away.
"I'm sure," Simon said, his eyes still on River, almost unblinking.
---
Simon wasn't sure if it was the infirmary that was cold, or him. River lay on the bed there, very still. He wanted to say she looked as though she was sleeping, but she didn't. She looked very young and very far away, and very quiet. Her hair was a mess against the pillow, and he wished she would wake up and he could tease her gently about looking like a porcupine, or something, but she did not move and he could only think, stupidly, that he'd never seen a porcupine anyway.
Her hand was cold, between his. He chafed at her hands, leaned down and blew warmth over them.
The crew did not go to the infirmary, that day.
---
"Doc?"
Simon looked up. He was still holding River's hand, and Tracey looked suddenly more unsure.
"Is it okay if I come in here? I hurt my hand," he said, and Simon's eyes flicked to his hand, to the red all over his hands. The look in his eyes didn't change, though.
"It's fine," he said, quietly. He looked straight back at River then.
"I was wonderin'... Kaylee said I should maybe ask you to put a stitch or two in it. At least see whether it's bad or not. I think it needs cleanin' at least, I got it caught in the engine... I probably should stay out of the engine room, but I like spending time with Kaylee, and she asked me to hold somethin' for her. She's just so nice, all the time, you know? And I'm sorry I was so... I'm sorry I was an ass before, about you an' her. She's just so nice, and I thought... Well, you're not... Anyway, could you? Look at my hand, I mean."
It took Simon a moment to reply. "I can't help you."
"Don't we have anythin'? I thought we'd stocked up..."
"I just can't."
Tracey took a deep breath. A few drops of blood were creeping down his hand and he grimaced, grabbing something to mop up the blood. "You're a doctor, ain't you?"
"I don't know what to do right now." Simon didn't even look up. "The bandages are in the third cupboard on the left. Zoe always worked as your medic before, didn't she?"
"I have some basic medic skills myself," Tracey said, without moving, still sounding mystified. "But -- "
"I can't do it," Simon said. His hands were trembling.
Tracey looked at him for a moment more and then went to the cupboard, taking out the bandages himself. "I thought it'd help. Doin' something, instead of just sittin' there. When you're grievin', it helps a man to do somethin' with his hands. In the war, the way you kept going, you just tried to help people or do something, tried not to think about it. Sometimes you'd need help. Kaylee wouldn't mind helpin' you. I wouldn't mind. And this could be somethin' you could do. It doesn't help, to just sit there and think about it and think about it until it's the only thing you can think about."
"You're kind," Simon said, but there was still an uncrossable distance, and Tracey knew he was walking on perilously thin ice. Simon had heard Mal saying the boy had no sense, no sense at all, but he seemed to know exactly what he was walking on.
---
The captain stopped in the doorway of the infirmary. Simon didn't need to look up to know it was him -- he knew by the way he walked, the way he stood, and the quality of the righteous silence. That was what the captain had been like since the moment he walked back onto Serenity with River cradled in his arms, and he knew it well enough by now. He hadn't gone out of his way to seek the captain out, and Mal had certainly seemed plenty disgusted with the work he'd done out there, but nor had he ignored him. They'd crossed paths.
"You killed your own sister," Mal said, breaking the silence for the first time -- though he did nothing for the ice, still thick and deserved. "She was hardly even a woman grown. You sit there in the infirmary with her body as if you did nothin', just as if you got there too late, but you killed before you even got to the ship. I thought you were a better man than that, but I bet you didn't even try to do anything else first. Was she even really your sister?"
"Of course she was my sister," Simon said. He got up, carefully laying River's cold hand down beside her, drawing the covers up over her as if it could make some kind of difference. He lifted his head, met the captain's eyes. "She was my sister, and I loved her very much. But she'd been twisted beyond all recognition. She was an assassin, a killer. A machine."
Silence, for a beat, and then -- "You're a machine," righteous as ever, hard and cold, steel. And then, "You're just as much a killer."
"I know," Simon said, quite simply. Because it was true. He'd killed too, just as automatically as she, doing what he was told for a goal that wasn't truly his, that he'd made his own. He'd killed innocents, probably. He'd broken his oaths. It didn't matter how he'd justified it, or even if he'd remembered his broken oath as he went. "I know that, Captain Reynolds. You did not need to remind me."
Mal clenched his fists again, and his jaw, looking as if he wanted to slam Simon through the wall, or something. "You should have tried to do something for her."
"That would have risked your crew. You told me not to do anything that risked your crew."
"Don't throw my own words back at me like that, boy."
"The truth hurts," Simon noted, feeling as if he were at an awful distance from the whole conversation. He barely saw Mal move, barely felt it when Mal's fist connected with his cheek. He didn't resist it, just let Mal do it, let it throw him back a little. It barely penetrated through the ice. He waited a breath, then raised his head again, met Mal's eyes. "Did that make you feel better?"
"No," Mal said, opening and closing his fist. He didn't move, didn't leave, but he didn't say anything else, either, just watched Simon.
"How long until we make landfall?"
"Two days from now."
Simon nodded, and turned away, turned back to River's body, lying there cold, still, lifeless. He didn't notice when Mal left, and wouldn't have cared if he had noticed.
He leaned over her, leaned down, and kissed her cold mouth softly -- barely there, light as a breath. He waited for a moment, as if he honestly expected to feel the soft movement of breath, the gentle warmth of life.
Nothing.
"I always did tell you that fairytales weren't real," he said, very soft, very cold.
---
When it happened, instinct took over before Simon even really understood what he was seeing. Suddenly he moved from inaction to action, like a switch flipped, and suddenly his thoughts were not with River's cold body but with the warm living body he could save and fix. He didn't know what to do when it came to engines, to flying, or the warm close companionship the crew shared over dinner. But he understood this. This was something he could do. Something he knew he had to do.
Kaylee was trapped under something -- that was the first thing he saw, the human trapped in the midst. That was good: that was his job. He was by her side immediately. "Kaylee?"
"Simon," she said, breathless, and her face was all screwed up with pain. Simon took a deep breath. "It hurts."
"Try not to move. I'm going to help you, okay? I can call the others if you don't trust me."
"Trust you," she whispered, finding his hand and squeezing it. She managed to look at him, too, her eyes bright with the pain, her mouth a flat line, and yet somehow he believed her, that she trusted him, even despite... He took a deep breath, squeezing back.
"This is going to hurt even more."
"S'okay," she whispered again. He saw the effort she was making, how still she was trying to lie, and he dropped her hand. He wasn't sure exactly what to do, but -- top three percent, after all, and this wasn't rocket science, lifting away the heavy machinery laying over her legs, freeing her so carefully -- he had to try not to do more damage --
"Kaylee? Is Serenity going to be okay? Has something...?"
"Should be fine for now," she whispered, her face very tight with it. He began to lift something away, no time to hesitate, and then stopped. He swallowed hard.
"Kaylee -- "
"Just get it off," she said, and those were tears on her face with the sweat. She was biting her lip so hard it bled. "It hurts so much."
"This'll hurt more. And you'll bleed."
"Gonna bleed anyway. Now, Simon. It's okay. You told me already. I'm not stupid. S'gonna hurt. Just do it."
Simon just did what he had to do, then. There was a lot of blood, slick on his hands, he could smell it and almost taste it on the air, but this wasn't death, this was clean, this could be life, and his hands were steady despite everything. His hands remembered what to do, even if it wouldn't quite come clear in his head, and he found the things he needed without thinking.
He took her to the infirmary. He was in a kind of daze -- a trance. He was on automatic and it felt good, it felt right, like falling back into place. River lay there, cold and still, but he did not touch her, and he was warm, too warm, and not a part of her coldness any more. Tracey and Mal and Zoe were with him, sometimes, their hands stronger than his, but not so sure, helping him, helping Kaylee. Making life out of the blood, shaping the cold numbness inside into something he could do.
Mal looked at him, afterwards, with contempt, still, like he had a bad taste in his mouth. "You're a cold-hearted bastard," he said, but low, because Kaylee lay there unconscious, still.
"That's a step up from a machine, I believe," Simon said. He was shocked, a little, at the chill that still crept into his heart, the numb unbelief when he thought of River, the quiet calm in his words. But he thought he was right, and it was a step up.
"Don't talk like that with me, boy."
"I could have let her die," Simon said, and oh, ice. "Are you any better, when it comes to what has to be done?"
Mal's hands clenched, at his sides. But he didn't hit Simon.
"When I have buried my sister," Simon said, into that cold stillness, "I would like to stay on Serenity. It seems you have plenty of work that I can do."
"Lookin' to make amends?"
Simon met Mal's eyes, steady, hands steady, heart steady. "Captain, I will never make amends for the things I've done."
---
Simon heard Book's steps in the corridor, just outside the infirmary door, and didn't turn to look at him. He waited, instead, without pausing. He was organising a drawer of medicines. On Osiris, he'd had someone to do this for him. He'd barely ever seen the stores of medicines. He could just ask someone to fetch them for him and they'd go running. He'd never had to clean his tools, or think about what happened to them when he laid them down and left the operating theatre. He'd never cleaned blood from his instruments back, knowing he'd have to use the same instruments again -- perhaps even as soon as he'd got them clean.
Even in the resistance he'd had helpers, people who cleaned up after him when he was reeling and exhausted. It was not that he had so very much work to do on Firefly, or that he particularly wanted company, but he'd never really thought before about these menial tasks. He liked to think he was keeping his infirmary clean and ready for whatever might come. It felt like his infirmary now. It always seemed a little colder than the rest of the ship, and a little further away. People didn't yell at each other in the hallway just outside, keeping their arguments away from his sterile room. People didn't run, here, unless they were running to find him because they needed him. People didn't talk just outside his room, or come here to find him and suggest he play a game of ball with them.
Sometimes, Simon slept in the infirmary, away from the rest of the crew.
"A man can deal with things in a lot of ways," Book said. Simon realised that there had been silence for a few moments. He continued to set the drawer in order.
"I know," he said, blandly. He hoped there was no welcome in his voice.
"If I were to deal with a situation like yours, I would have prayed for guidance every day. And I would pray, now, for forgiveness for what I did." Book stayed in the doorway, mercifully. Simon would have thought it good luck, but suspected that it was more than that -- that Book knew full well he should stay on the edges, and pick at Simon only from there. The drawer of medicines was hopelessly disarranged. Simon lifted the phials and syringes and bottles with great care, straightening the racks and slotting things into place. One of the bottles had broken. Wash couldn't always fly perfectly smoothly, he supposed. Or perhaps someone had broken the bottles in a hurry. There seemed to be a decent proportion of those hurried situations.
All the more reason for him to take a lot of care in sorting everything, getting everything ready. It might be needed at any moment. Until then it could wait, sterile, sealed.
"I won't just go away, no matter how long you wait, son," Book said, not ungently. "And nor will your guilt."
"I know the guilt won't go away, but I hope you won't just stand there. You're not going to get anything out of me. I'm not interested in your religion: you're welcome to it, but I don't need it."
"You sounded very like the captain just then."
Simon almost found himself saying oh? -- but he knew what it was, a gambit to try and draw him into conversation.
"I don't want to talk, Shepherd," he said, as respectfully as he could manage.
Book stood there for a long time. Simon felt his eyes on his back as he moved around the infirmary, but he refused to look up and see him. Instead there was the drawer, and a seemingly endless inventory -- six of this and seven of that; none of this and barely half a bottle of something else. He made notes, things the infirmary needed, and whispered mantras to himself, memorising, remembering.
He thought he heard Book's voice under his own, speaking the words of a prayer. It didn't matter. He had his own catechism to say.
---
"How long are you going to hide?"
Simon looked up, startled. "Inara," he said, awkwardly. "Is there something..."
"I asked you a question."
"I wasn't aware that I was hiding."
Inara inclined her head. "No?"
Simon's fists clenched a little. His nails bit into his palms. "My sister is dead. I'm mourning. I should have saved her."
"You did save her."
"That makes a nice excuse for what I did."
"You're making all kinds of excuses. Hiding behind your guilt, sure it must be your fault, all of it. She chose to go to that place, Simon. You had virtually no say in it, from what you've told us. She asked you to get her out, and you did."
"I'm pretty sure she meant alive."
"Probably," Inara said. She inclined her head a little. "Would your sister have liked the idea of being a tool? Of being used? Of murdering?"
"Of course not."
"This is probably better, then, than that existence."
"That doesn't..."
"You can wallow in it as long as you like. You can hide in here. Sooner or later, though, you'll have to face the real world, and you'll have to face what you've done. The longer you refuse to, the harder it will be."
"I -- "
"Think about it," Inara said, and before Simon could get a word out, she'd left again, sliding the door shut behind her. He heard her steps, walking away, but he didn't try to follow.
---
Simon woke shivering, sweating, in the middle of the night. He felt as if he'd heard someone say his name, just softly. For a moment he wondered whether it had been his father -- checking if he was awake, perhaps -- or his mother, hearing some disquiet in his sleep. Or River --
Something grabbed at his heart, squeezed it tightly, so tightly Simon thought it might stop. The pain in his chest was acute: for a moment he ran through symptoms, possible causes, possible solutions. But it was ridiculous -- he was too young for -- and then it hit him, a sob, crumpling him up hard. He was breathing, but only through the sobs, sucking air, fisting his hands in his covers because he didn't have anything else to hold.
He didn't hear the door slide open; he startled when he felt the touch. It was the captain. He said something about wakin' everyone up, his voice gruff, but there was no sleep in his voice and his hold on Simon's shoulders, though firm, didn't hurt at all. Simon wanted to stop -- didn't want Mal to see him weeping like a child waking from a nightmare -- but it jolted him again, almost a physical blow, as if his grief had been locked away too long and held down too hard and now had to react, to lash out, to lash at him and lacerate him.
"It's alright, son," Mal said, gripping his shoulders a little tighter. "Gotta let it out sometime. That's right."
"Says you," Simon said, breathless through a sob, and instead of being angry, this time Simon sensed a smile, a slight huff that might be laughter.
"Not talkin' about me right now. Different rules for captain and crew, didn't you know?"
He was still shaking with it, so very glad that Mal hadn't turned a light on. The tight hold on his shoulders turned into an almost-embrace, and Simon half-remembered something like this -- his father, holding him as a child, but it was a nightmare he woke up from then, not like now, waking up to reality. Mal gripped the back of his neck, held him like that, rough but oddly gentling, giving him a foothold, bringing him through.
"I got you," Mal said, senseless, comforting -- or a promise? "I got you, Simon."
He didn't know -- didn't want to know -- how long it took. He didn't want to know how long it might have held him without that -- holding him childlike and unable to escape, alone in the dark. When at last he stopped shaking -- his hands were the last to stop; he couldn't operate then, not unless he truly had to -- Mal let go, without any embarrassment.
"You done?"
Simon scrubbed at his face, dragged in a breath and held himself steady. No shaking. "Yes."
"Least you ain't a robot." A pause, another moment in which Simon got himself back under control. "Come on. You need a drink. Something strong." Mal stood up, headed out of the room as if there was no question. Simon couldn't help but follow.
"Ordinarily I'd say a drink doesn't help with anything."
"You can drink tea if you want," Mal said, though with an edge to it, as if he'd think less of Simon if he did. "Important thing's the drinkin' together."
"I'll drink with you."
Mal didn't say anything else. He put the lights on, got out the alcohol, got out two glasses. Pushed out a chair. Simon hesitated.
"I don't..."
"You're on my crew, that's why. Now sit down. Not another word until we're halfway through this bottle."
"Captain..."
"I mean it. Not another word."
"Alright," Simon said, watching him pour the drink -- whatever it was. Alright. And, oddly, it was almost true, or beginning to be true.
---
Tracey cannoned into him, trying to make him drop the ball. Simon twisted out of the way, throwing the ball to Zoe, grabbing Tracey before he managed to overbalance. "Don't fall," he said, with something like a grin. "I don't want you breaking your nose or something."
"I didn't expect you to be so gorramn good at this game," Tracey muttered, pushing a hand through his sweaty hair. He glared at Simon a little, but it wasn't serious. "You come from Osiris! You're supposed to be too fancy and prissy to know how to play this game."
"We played in the resistance," Simon said. A small hush fell, a sudden stillness, but he didn't seem to notice it. He was still smiling, just a little, a shy sort of smile. The smile he got when he opened up a little and let them in, Kaylee thought, and she started to smile too. "We had to have some kind of downtime. And me and River..."
"She play too?"
"Not quite, but something like," Simon said, quietly. He glanced up, for a moment, at the barrier where Inara stood, as if he expected to see someone else there, standing beside her. He went even quieter still. "Sometimes I feel as if she's not so far away -- as if she somehow made it onto Serenity too, as if she's here... I pass an empty room and I think I hear her singing, or when I'm coming down here I think I hear her dancing -- not like she did at home, but in big combat boots, and laughing... Or I look up and I think she's there..."
Zoe bounced the ball, pointedly, and threw it back at Simon. "Enough reminiscin', doc," she said. Kaylee opened her mouth to protest, but caught a stern look from Mal.
"Not now, Kaylee," he said. "We need to be playin' this game. Zoe an' I've got work to be doin'."
"But -- "
Simon had caught the ball. He grinned, moving quickly past Tracey, who'd relaxed a bit while they were talking. He threw the ball up, missing the hoop just barely, and Zoe seized it and threw it up and through the hoop, all before Tracey or Kaylee had time to cry that it wasn't fair.
"Gotta keep your eye on the ball," Mal said, to Tracey.
"Sorry, sarge," Tracey said, and then snatched the ball as soon as he could. The hold rang with laughter, with footsteps, with shouts and the clang of the ball against the walls and ladders and the hoop.
Inara watched them, leaning against the barrier, and didn't mention that she almost felt it too, sometimes, the strange presence of something she did not understand, the way she sometimes thought there was another passenger, dark-haired and quick and lithe, there only in the corner of one's eye. She watched Simon take another shot, his hands steady and sure, a smile on his face.
"I think he'll be okay, River," she said, quietly, but she knew there was nothing beside her now. She smiled to herself. "I think you can rest."
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
Simon wore soft shoes. It was the right choice. The floors were hard and shiny, but the soft shoes made little enough noise. He wasn't stupid. He knew he couldn't have made it into the complex without being found out. All he had to do was get far enough in, and appear enough of a threat, that they would send their best weapon against him. He didn't even have to be that showy, because they liked using their weapon. The only reason they wouldn't send it was if they thought that was really his goal.
There was always a chance that they would recognise him. But Simon had been considered dead a long time -- nobody had even been sure that the Resistance had safely extracted him after the first attempt. They'd been relatively sure he'd died. Which was careless, and unlike the Alliance, and Simon didn't discount the idea of them having a file on him still open just in case. They were good at covering their asses.
He worked carefully in any case, carefully placing charges, traps. He didn't expect anyone to fall into them, but he needed the appearance of it.
He didn't hear it coming. He hadn't expected to. It was some sixth sense that warned him, made him duck and roll away from the wall as a foot almost smashed through his head. The movement was converted as quickly as thought, the foot catching him in the ribs and sending him sprawling, ungraceful and uncontrolled.
"River," he wheezed. There was no time to catch his breath. No time to think. Thinking would be the deadliest thing of all. He focused on the charges, his mission.
The expression on River's face did not change -- there was no expression, just a smooth blankness. Her face was beautiful and doll-like. Simon focused on that, on the pain in his gut at seeing it. He thought he'd been ready for this, he'd watched those videos over and over again, but they hadn't caught the horror of it.
He rolled again, trying not to think or to plan, just rolling, getting out of the way of her foot. She did not try to kick again -- he didn't see where the knife came from, or whether she'd been holding it all along. He rolled again, taking a sharp breath.
It was only on pure luck that he was surviving so long. Nothing else. He'd thought he might have some hesitation to work with, some recognition, but River was a blank.
He rolled one more time, knowing that one way or the other it was the last. He rolled towards her, sharp and sudden, and caught her leg. She moved to kick, and he held on grimly. He only had to hold on long enough -- there, and he'd done it, he'd done it. He emptied the syringe into her vein, praying it would work as fast as he'd calculated, praying he'd got it just right.
She collapsed, her strings cut. There was an expression on her face, then -- almost one of surprise -- just before unconsciousness swept over her. He picked her up, then, feeling her weight lax in his arms. He held her tightly. "I told you I'd save you," he whispered. He felt unsteady. His heart was pounding. "I told you, River."
River was so light in his arms. Light, and cold, and he held her hard, trying to give her substance, trying to give her his warmth. Her head lolled against his shoulder. He felt sick, shaky with adrenaline. It was hard to believe he'd made it out -- that he was breathing in fresh air, that he was alive.
He wouldn't exactly had said unscathed.
Serenity was waiting for him. He'd almost expected them to be gone, somehow. He stumbled a little as he carried River on up into the hold. He didn't look into any of their faces, looked only where he was going, and carried River, so still.
"Is she alright?" Kaylee asked, reaching out to touch his arm. Simon walked right past her without seeing, cradling River. He tried not to jostle her, or smash her limbs against anything, as he carried her to the infirmary. He hadn't held her like this in a long time -- it was almost like a man carrying his bride over the threshold, he thought, giddily. Only without the guests, without the happy faces, without the friends and family to surround them.
"It went okay, then," the captain said, and caught his shoulder when he didn't reply. "Hey."
"It went as expected," Simon said, laying River down with infinite care. "Take us somewhere bright."
"Huh?"
"I have the choice of where you drop us off, don't I? That's what they paid for. Take us somewhere bright. Somewhere with flowers."
"Wash will know where to go."
"Ask Wash, then," Simon said, without looking up.
"Look, Doc, you got no call to be orderin' me around -- "
"Ask Wash, please."
Mal looked at him, and at River laying there so limp and pale, and nodded. His eyes narrowed a little. "She okay?"
"She's fine. She's safe now. Please, captain."
Mal watched him for a moment longer, eyes still narrowed, then he nodded. "Be glad to be rid of you," he said, turning away.
"I'm sure," Simon said, his eyes still on River, almost unblinking.
Simon wasn't sure if it was the infirmary that was cold, or him. River lay on the bed there, very still. He wanted to say she looked as though she was sleeping, but she didn't. She looked very young and very far away, and very quiet. Her hair was a mess against the pillow, and he wished she would wake up and he could tease her gently about looking like a porcupine, or something, but she did not move and he could only think, stupidly, that he'd never seen a porcupine anyway.
Her hand was cold, between his. He chafed at her hands, leaned down and blew warmth over them.
The crew did not go to the infirmary, that day.
"Doc?"
Simon looked up. He was still holding River's hand, and Tracey looked suddenly more unsure.
"Is it okay if I come in here? I hurt my hand," he said, and Simon's eyes flicked to his hand, to the red all over his hands. The look in his eyes didn't change, though.
"It's fine," he said, quietly. He looked straight back at River then.
"I was wonderin'... Kaylee said I should maybe ask you to put a stitch or two in it. At least see whether it's bad or not. I think it needs cleanin' at least, I got it caught in the engine... I probably should stay out of the engine room, but I like spending time with Kaylee, and she asked me to hold somethin' for her. She's just so nice, all the time, you know? And I'm sorry I was so... I'm sorry I was an ass before, about you an' her. She's just so nice, and I thought... Well, you're not... Anyway, could you? Look at my hand, I mean."
It took Simon a moment to reply. "I can't help you."
"Don't we have anythin'? I thought we'd stocked up..."
"I just can't."
Tracey took a deep breath. A few drops of blood were creeping down his hand and he grimaced, grabbing something to mop up the blood. "You're a doctor, ain't you?"
"I don't know what to do right now." Simon didn't even look up. "The bandages are in the third cupboard on the left. Zoe always worked as your medic before, didn't she?"
"I have some basic medic skills myself," Tracey said, without moving, still sounding mystified. "But -- "
"I can't do it," Simon said. His hands were trembling.
Tracey looked at him for a moment more and then went to the cupboard, taking out the bandages himself. "I thought it'd help. Doin' something, instead of just sittin' there. When you're grievin', it helps a man to do somethin' with his hands. In the war, the way you kept going, you just tried to help people or do something, tried not to think about it. Sometimes you'd need help. Kaylee wouldn't mind helpin' you. I wouldn't mind. And this could be somethin' you could do. It doesn't help, to just sit there and think about it and think about it until it's the only thing you can think about."
"You're kind," Simon said, but there was still an uncrossable distance, and Tracey knew he was walking on perilously thin ice. Simon had heard Mal saying the boy had no sense, no sense at all, but he seemed to know exactly what he was walking on.
The captain stopped in the doorway of the infirmary. Simon didn't need to look up to know it was him -- he knew by the way he walked, the way he stood, and the quality of the righteous silence. That was what the captain had been like since the moment he walked back onto Serenity with River cradled in his arms, and he knew it well enough by now. He hadn't gone out of his way to seek the captain out, and Mal had certainly seemed plenty disgusted with the work he'd done out there, but nor had he ignored him. They'd crossed paths.
"You killed your own sister," Mal said, breaking the silence for the first time -- though he did nothing for the ice, still thick and deserved. "She was hardly even a woman grown. You sit there in the infirmary with her body as if you did nothin', just as if you got there too late, but you killed before you even got to the ship. I thought you were a better man than that, but I bet you didn't even try to do anything else first. Was she even really your sister?"
"Of course she was my sister," Simon said. He got up, carefully laying River's cold hand down beside her, drawing the covers up over her as if it could make some kind of difference. He lifted his head, met the captain's eyes. "She was my sister, and I loved her very much. But she'd been twisted beyond all recognition. She was an assassin, a killer. A machine."
Silence, for a beat, and then -- "You're a machine," righteous as ever, hard and cold, steel. And then, "You're just as much a killer."
"I know," Simon said, quite simply. Because it was true. He'd killed too, just as automatically as she, doing what he was told for a goal that wasn't truly his, that he'd made his own. He'd killed innocents, probably. He'd broken his oaths. It didn't matter how he'd justified it, or even if he'd remembered his broken oath as he went. "I know that, Captain Reynolds. You did not need to remind me."
Mal clenched his fists again, and his jaw, looking as if he wanted to slam Simon through the wall, or something. "You should have tried to do something for her."
"That would have risked your crew. You told me not to do anything that risked your crew."
"Don't throw my own words back at me like that, boy."
"The truth hurts," Simon noted, feeling as if he were at an awful distance from the whole conversation. He barely saw Mal move, barely felt it when Mal's fist connected with his cheek. He didn't resist it, just let Mal do it, let it throw him back a little. It barely penetrated through the ice. He waited a breath, then raised his head again, met Mal's eyes. "Did that make you feel better?"
"No," Mal said, opening and closing his fist. He didn't move, didn't leave, but he didn't say anything else, either, just watched Simon.
"How long until we make landfall?"
"Two days from now."
Simon nodded, and turned away, turned back to River's body, lying there cold, still, lifeless. He didn't notice when Mal left, and wouldn't have cared if he had noticed.
He leaned over her, leaned down, and kissed her cold mouth softly -- barely there, light as a breath. He waited for a moment, as if he honestly expected to feel the soft movement of breath, the gentle warmth of life.
Nothing.
"I always did tell you that fairytales weren't real," he said, very soft, very cold.
When it happened, instinct took over before Simon even really understood what he was seeing. Suddenly he moved from inaction to action, like a switch flipped, and suddenly his thoughts were not with River's cold body but with the warm living body he could save and fix. He didn't know what to do when it came to engines, to flying, or the warm close companionship the crew shared over dinner. But he understood this. This was something he could do. Something he knew he had to do.
Kaylee was trapped under something -- that was the first thing he saw, the human trapped in the midst. That was good: that was his job. He was by her side immediately. "Kaylee?"
"Simon," she said, breathless, and her face was all screwed up with pain. Simon took a deep breath. "It hurts."
"Try not to move. I'm going to help you, okay? I can call the others if you don't trust me."
"Trust you," she whispered, finding his hand and squeezing it. She managed to look at him, too, her eyes bright with the pain, her mouth a flat line, and yet somehow he believed her, that she trusted him, even despite... He took a deep breath, squeezing back.
"This is going to hurt even more."
"S'okay," she whispered again. He saw the effort she was making, how still she was trying to lie, and he dropped her hand. He wasn't sure exactly what to do, but -- top three percent, after all, and this wasn't rocket science, lifting away the heavy machinery laying over her legs, freeing her so carefully -- he had to try not to do more damage --
"Kaylee? Is Serenity going to be okay? Has something...?"
"Should be fine for now," she whispered, her face very tight with it. He began to lift something away, no time to hesitate, and then stopped. He swallowed hard.
"Kaylee -- "
"Just get it off," she said, and those were tears on her face with the sweat. She was biting her lip so hard it bled. "It hurts so much."
"This'll hurt more. And you'll bleed."
"Gonna bleed anyway. Now, Simon. It's okay. You told me already. I'm not stupid. S'gonna hurt. Just do it."
Simon just did what he had to do, then. There was a lot of blood, slick on his hands, he could smell it and almost taste it on the air, but this wasn't death, this was clean, this could be life, and his hands were steady despite everything. His hands remembered what to do, even if it wouldn't quite come clear in his head, and he found the things he needed without thinking.
He took her to the infirmary. He was in a kind of daze -- a trance. He was on automatic and it felt good, it felt right, like falling back into place. River lay there, cold and still, but he did not touch her, and he was warm, too warm, and not a part of her coldness any more. Tracey and Mal and Zoe were with him, sometimes, their hands stronger than his, but not so sure, helping him, helping Kaylee. Making life out of the blood, shaping the cold numbness inside into something he could do.
Mal looked at him, afterwards, with contempt, still, like he had a bad taste in his mouth. "You're a cold-hearted bastard," he said, but low, because Kaylee lay there unconscious, still.
"That's a step up from a machine, I believe," Simon said. He was shocked, a little, at the chill that still crept into his heart, the numb unbelief when he thought of River, the quiet calm in his words. But he thought he was right, and it was a step up.
"Don't talk like that with me, boy."
"I could have let her die," Simon said, and oh, ice. "Are you any better, when it comes to what has to be done?"
Mal's hands clenched, at his sides. But he didn't hit Simon.
"When I have buried my sister," Simon said, into that cold stillness, "I would like to stay on Serenity. It seems you have plenty of work that I can do."
"Lookin' to make amends?"
Simon met Mal's eyes, steady, hands steady, heart steady. "Captain, I will never make amends for the things I've done."
Simon heard Book's steps in the corridor, just outside the infirmary door, and didn't turn to look at him. He waited, instead, without pausing. He was organising a drawer of medicines. On Osiris, he'd had someone to do this for him. He'd barely ever seen the stores of medicines. He could just ask someone to fetch them for him and they'd go running. He'd never had to clean his tools, or think about what happened to them when he laid them down and left the operating theatre. He'd never cleaned blood from his instruments back, knowing he'd have to use the same instruments again -- perhaps even as soon as he'd got them clean.
Even in the resistance he'd had helpers, people who cleaned up after him when he was reeling and exhausted. It was not that he had so very much work to do on Firefly, or that he particularly wanted company, but he'd never really thought before about these menial tasks. He liked to think he was keeping his infirmary clean and ready for whatever might come. It felt like his infirmary now. It always seemed a little colder than the rest of the ship, and a little further away. People didn't yell at each other in the hallway just outside, keeping their arguments away from his sterile room. People didn't run, here, unless they were running to find him because they needed him. People didn't talk just outside his room, or come here to find him and suggest he play a game of ball with them.
Sometimes, Simon slept in the infirmary, away from the rest of the crew.
"A man can deal with things in a lot of ways," Book said. Simon realised that there had been silence for a few moments. He continued to set the drawer in order.
"I know," he said, blandly. He hoped there was no welcome in his voice.
"If I were to deal with a situation like yours, I would have prayed for guidance every day. And I would pray, now, for forgiveness for what I did." Book stayed in the doorway, mercifully. Simon would have thought it good luck, but suspected that it was more than that -- that Book knew full well he should stay on the edges, and pick at Simon only from there. The drawer of medicines was hopelessly disarranged. Simon lifted the phials and syringes and bottles with great care, straightening the racks and slotting things into place. One of the bottles had broken. Wash couldn't always fly perfectly smoothly, he supposed. Or perhaps someone had broken the bottles in a hurry. There seemed to be a decent proportion of those hurried situations.
All the more reason for him to take a lot of care in sorting everything, getting everything ready. It might be needed at any moment. Until then it could wait, sterile, sealed.
"I won't just go away, no matter how long you wait, son," Book said, not ungently. "And nor will your guilt."
"I know the guilt won't go away, but I hope you won't just stand there. You're not going to get anything out of me. I'm not interested in your religion: you're welcome to it, but I don't need it."
"You sounded very like the captain just then."
Simon almost found himself saying oh? -- but he knew what it was, a gambit to try and draw him into conversation.
"I don't want to talk, Shepherd," he said, as respectfully as he could manage.
Book stood there for a long time. Simon felt his eyes on his back as he moved around the infirmary, but he refused to look up and see him. Instead there was the drawer, and a seemingly endless inventory -- six of this and seven of that; none of this and barely half a bottle of something else. He made notes, things the infirmary needed, and whispered mantras to himself, memorising, remembering.
He thought he heard Book's voice under his own, speaking the words of a prayer. It didn't matter. He had his own catechism to say.
"How long are you going to hide?"
Simon looked up, startled. "Inara," he said, awkwardly. "Is there something..."
"I asked you a question."
"I wasn't aware that I was hiding."
Inara inclined her head. "No?"
Simon's fists clenched a little. His nails bit into his palms. "My sister is dead. I'm mourning. I should have saved her."
"You did save her."
"That makes a nice excuse for what I did."
"You're making all kinds of excuses. Hiding behind your guilt, sure it must be your fault, all of it. She chose to go to that place, Simon. You had virtually no say in it, from what you've told us. She asked you to get her out, and you did."
"I'm pretty sure she meant alive."
"Probably," Inara said. She inclined her head a little. "Would your sister have liked the idea of being a tool? Of being used? Of murdering?"
"Of course not."
"This is probably better, then, than that existence."
"That doesn't..."
"You can wallow in it as long as you like. You can hide in here. Sooner or later, though, you'll have to face the real world, and you'll have to face what you've done. The longer you refuse to, the harder it will be."
"I -- "
"Think about it," Inara said, and before Simon could get a word out, she'd left again, sliding the door shut behind her. He heard her steps, walking away, but he didn't try to follow.
Simon woke shivering, sweating, in the middle of the night. He felt as if he'd heard someone say his name, just softly. For a moment he wondered whether it had been his father -- checking if he was awake, perhaps -- or his mother, hearing some disquiet in his sleep. Or River --
Something grabbed at his heart, squeezed it tightly, so tightly Simon thought it might stop. The pain in his chest was acute: for a moment he ran through symptoms, possible causes, possible solutions. But it was ridiculous -- he was too young for -- and then it hit him, a sob, crumpling him up hard. He was breathing, but only through the sobs, sucking air, fisting his hands in his covers because he didn't have anything else to hold.
He didn't hear the door slide open; he startled when he felt the touch. It was the captain. He said something about wakin' everyone up, his voice gruff, but there was no sleep in his voice and his hold on Simon's shoulders, though firm, didn't hurt at all. Simon wanted to stop -- didn't want Mal to see him weeping like a child waking from a nightmare -- but it jolted him again, almost a physical blow, as if his grief had been locked away too long and held down too hard and now had to react, to lash out, to lash at him and lacerate him.
"It's alright, son," Mal said, gripping his shoulders a little tighter. "Gotta let it out sometime. That's right."
"Says you," Simon said, breathless through a sob, and instead of being angry, this time Simon sensed a smile, a slight huff that might be laughter.
"Not talkin' about me right now. Different rules for captain and crew, didn't you know?"
He was still shaking with it, so very glad that Mal hadn't turned a light on. The tight hold on his shoulders turned into an almost-embrace, and Simon half-remembered something like this -- his father, holding him as a child, but it was a nightmare he woke up from then, not like now, waking up to reality. Mal gripped the back of his neck, held him like that, rough but oddly gentling, giving him a foothold, bringing him through.
"I got you," Mal said, senseless, comforting -- or a promise? "I got you, Simon."
He didn't know -- didn't want to know -- how long it took. He didn't want to know how long it might have held him without that -- holding him childlike and unable to escape, alone in the dark. When at last he stopped shaking -- his hands were the last to stop; he couldn't operate then, not unless he truly had to -- Mal let go, without any embarrassment.
"You done?"
Simon scrubbed at his face, dragged in a breath and held himself steady. No shaking. "Yes."
"Least you ain't a robot." A pause, another moment in which Simon got himself back under control. "Come on. You need a drink. Something strong." Mal stood up, headed out of the room as if there was no question. Simon couldn't help but follow.
"Ordinarily I'd say a drink doesn't help with anything."
"You can drink tea if you want," Mal said, though with an edge to it, as if he'd think less of Simon if he did. "Important thing's the drinkin' together."
"I'll drink with you."
Mal didn't say anything else. He put the lights on, got out the alcohol, got out two glasses. Pushed out a chair. Simon hesitated.
"I don't..."
"You're on my crew, that's why. Now sit down. Not another word until we're halfway through this bottle."
"Captain..."
"I mean it. Not another word."
"Alright," Simon said, watching him pour the drink -- whatever it was. Alright. And, oddly, it was almost true, or beginning to be true.
Tracey cannoned into him, trying to make him drop the ball. Simon twisted out of the way, throwing the ball to Zoe, grabbing Tracey before he managed to overbalance. "Don't fall," he said, with something like a grin. "I don't want you breaking your nose or something."
"I didn't expect you to be so gorramn good at this game," Tracey muttered, pushing a hand through his sweaty hair. He glared at Simon a little, but it wasn't serious. "You come from Osiris! You're supposed to be too fancy and prissy to know how to play this game."
"We played in the resistance," Simon said. A small hush fell, a sudden stillness, but he didn't seem to notice it. He was still smiling, just a little, a shy sort of smile. The smile he got when he opened up a little and let them in, Kaylee thought, and she started to smile too. "We had to have some kind of downtime. And me and River..."
"She play too?"
"Not quite, but something like," Simon said, quietly. He glanced up, for a moment, at the barrier where Inara stood, as if he expected to see someone else there, standing beside her. He went even quieter still. "Sometimes I feel as if she's not so far away -- as if she somehow made it onto Serenity too, as if she's here... I pass an empty room and I think I hear her singing, or when I'm coming down here I think I hear her dancing -- not like she did at home, but in big combat boots, and laughing... Or I look up and I think she's there..."
Zoe bounced the ball, pointedly, and threw it back at Simon. "Enough reminiscin', doc," she said. Kaylee opened her mouth to protest, but caught a stern look from Mal.
"Not now, Kaylee," he said. "We need to be playin' this game. Zoe an' I've got work to be doin'."
"But -- "
Simon had caught the ball. He grinned, moving quickly past Tracey, who'd relaxed a bit while they were talking. He threw the ball up, missing the hoop just barely, and Zoe seized it and threw it up and through the hoop, all before Tracey or Kaylee had time to cry that it wasn't fair.
"Gotta keep your eye on the ball," Mal said, to Tracey.
"Sorry, sarge," Tracey said, and then snatched the ball as soon as he could. The hold rang with laughter, with footsteps, with shouts and the clang of the ball against the walls and ladders and the hoop.
Inara watched them, leaning against the barrier, and didn't mention that she almost felt it too, sometimes, the strange presence of something she did not understand, the way she sometimes thought there was another passenger, dark-haired and quick and lithe, there only in the corner of one's eye. She watched Simon take another shot, his hands steady and sure, a smile on his face.
"I think he'll be okay, River," she said, quietly, but she knew there was nothing beside her now. She smiled to herself. "I think you can rest."
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV