I'll try and post these two at a time because they're so short.

The first 'day' can be found here:

Day 1.

Thanks to Tamsibling for the beta!

------------ The Prisoner

------------

- Day 2 -

Simon awoke in a cell; dark and damp and cold. He trembled as he wrapped his arms around himself, trying desperately to rub some heat into his skin. He was bare to the waist. Left only with the cargo pants he’d donned that morning – or seemingly that morning as there was no concept of time in this dark place.

He pushed himself to a seated position with some difficulty, as his muscles, tense from the shock delivered to his system that knocked him unconscious, began to relax.

“I wouldn’t scuffle about too much. They don’t like a lot of movement.”

Simon’s head whirled around and his eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness. He’d heard the voice, but couldn’t place the direction from which it had come.

“Where am I?” Simon asked, his voice rough from disuse.

“Hell.”

Simon slumped against the wall, exhaling a deep breath and closing his eyes. “Back so soon?” he asked the shadows, “I thought it was only one visit per lifetime.”

The man chuckled deeply at the newest prisoner’s sarcasm. “You’d know if you’d been to hell and back, boy.”

A familiarity tingled in the back of Simon’s mind, but he dismissed it. “I think facing down a room full of Reavers and living to tell the tale constitutes as traveling to hell and back.”

There was a tinge of awe in the invisible man’s voice. “I see.”

“Believe me, I wish I hadn’t.” Simon said as he pushed himself to his feet and stumbled around in the darkness, feeling the sides of the stone wall for any lever that would at least turn on some light, if not open a doorway to freedom.

~*~

“We’ll get him back, Kaylee,” Inara said as the girl sat rigid on Inara’s bed. The Companion drew a brush through her unkept hair, trying to soothe the upset mechanic.

“Cap’n ain’t made a move to go back yet.”

“He will.”

“You know that for sure?” Kaylee arched her neck, causing Inara to cease her brushing. She wanted to trust in her Captain. He’d never really let her down before. But her emotional attachment to Simon made trusting Mal’s inaction thus far more difficult than it should have been.

“Mal doesn’t leave –“

“Family,” Kaylee finished, pursing her lips as more angry thoughts flew through her mind. “He ain’t never thought of Simon an’ River as family.”

Inara allowed a small smile to grace her elegant features. “Yes he does. He’s just never let anyone see it.”

“I love him, ‘Nara,” Kaylee admitted, bowing her head and closing her eyes. “An’ if he dies ‘fore I get the chance to tell him –“

“Have faith, Kaylee,” Inara set the brush down and embraced the distraught mechanic from behind. “Malcolm Reynolds doesn’t give up that easily.”

TBC -------------

Liked it? Hated it? Leave a review and let me know.