It's building slowly for a reason. Mostly because I'm a fan of drama and like to keep people wondering.

The first two 'days' can be found here:

Day 1. Day 2.

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The Prisoner

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- Day 3 -

“Why are you here?” Simon asked, squinting in the direction he now knew the voice and body of his cell-mate to be.

“I committed a crime.”

“Oh, is that all?” Simon’s voice dripped sarcasm.

The man’s deep voice rumbled as a chuckle escaped his lips. “I like you, boy. No doubt they will not.”

Simon ignored the familiar tone of the man’s voice and instead latched onto something he’d said. “Who are they?”

Silence greeted his question.

“Alliance?”

“In some form or another, perhaps.”

Simon wondered about that answer for a long time, until a stone door slid open and he was dragged out of the room, still under cover of darkness.

The man left behind only sighed.

~*~

Simon tried to look around the dark room as his wrists and ankles were bound. He was cold but the rough treatment heated his skin quicker than he thought possible and he welcomed it until the first, sharp lash struck his back.

A surprised gasp escaped his mouth but he clenched it tight as two more quick strokes brought the lash once again into contact with sensitive skin. Tears pricked his eyes but he clamped them shut until he felt the pad of a finger trace down the lithe muscles of his chest.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked and the finger stopped at the waistband of his pants.

He could barely make out the silhouette standing before him, dark as it was and he could not tell if the finger touching him belonged to a man or a woman. Only later, when his question was answered with a sharp punch to the gut, did Simon figure such a painful strike could be delivered by a man.

After untold minutes of voicing his questions and receiving nothing but violence in return, Simon closed his mouth, slumping against his bonds as he was struck again and again.

But his silence did not deter his captors.

Simon lost track of time amidst the sharp, intrusive pain. He tried to think of other things; his sister’s smile, Kaylee’s eyes, but with each sting of a lash, or hand, or boot, he was jostled back to the painful reality of his life. He groaned loudly when his bonds were cut and he fell in a pained heap to the cold, stone floor. A few more well placed strikes to his back and ribs left him gasping as they dragged him back to his cell.

~*~

“We’ll go back, Kaylee.” Mal said, clenching his jaw from an outburst he felt welling quickly in his chest. She’d asked non stop since they’d lifted off the planet where Simon had been taken and it was starting to grate on his already frayed nerves.

“When?”

Mal knew that she was worried, afraid that he wouldn’t go back for Simon. He pushed the hurt that she would think him so uncaring to the back of his mind. Kaylee was scared on a level that he suspected she was most unaccustomed, and because of that –and because she was easily the light and heart of his boat and he didn’t want to hurt her – he held his tongue.

He stopped, turned, and met her eyes. “We need intel. An’ I mean to get it ‘fore we go back there.”

“What if its too late? It’s takin’ so long.”

He could see Kaylee fight to keep control of her anger. He knew, from experience he’d prefer to forget, that it was sometimes easier to be angry, than to cry for something lost. Mal rested his hands on her shoulder and with as much certainty as he could force into his voice, said, “We’ll get him back, mei mei. I promise you.”

It was the one and only promise Malcolm Reynolds had ever made that he knew, with a certain unnerving finality, he would die to keep.

TBC

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