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

The first four 'days' can be found here:

Day 1. Day 2. Day 3. Day 4.

Thanks to Tamsibling for the beta.

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The Prisoner

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- Day 5 -

Simon could feel his strength fading each time they deposited him into the dark cell. He knew several ribs were bruised badly, and he didn’t even want to see the multi-colored bruises that he knew, just by sensitivity to touch, dotted his skin. He was cold and he trembled despite himself.

His fellow prisoner was silent, as he was most of the time when Simon returned from his ‘interrogation’.

Simon felt himself drifting into an uneasy sleep just as the lights in the cell flashed on, blinding him momentarily. He flung his hands up to his eyes to cover them, as the light was so bright it pierced his closed lids.

But no sooner had the lights flashed on, did they disappear and Simon sank back against the wall, exhausted and concerned that he had still not been questioned.

“They will break you before they even begin to question you,” came a soft voice from the corner of the room.

Simon’s head lolled to one side as he regarded his cell-mate in the darkness. “I can’t help them.”

“What do you have that they can possibly want?”

Simon could hear the disbelieving tone in the other man’s voice, and even in the dark, could picture his eyebrows raised and a smirk curling his lips at what the Alliance could possibly want with someone like him.

Simon thought about his answer for a long moment before responding. “Nothing. I literally have nothing.” Nothing in the form of material things. But those, as he had learned over the last year, were not so important. He had his sister, Kaylee, his new family. They were more important than any material thing in the 'verse.

“Doubtful they’d believe you.”

“I’m inclined to agree.” Simon closed his eyes and tried once again to get some rest.

~*~

“Waiting on leads, Kaylee,” Mal said for the hundredth time in the last few days. She’d taken to cornering him all over the ship and she’d done it again, this time in the common room. Except for the occasional meal, it was nearly the only time he saw her. And he needed her at her best, especially when they went back for Simon. She needed to keep her girl at optimum performance. Though he had not doubt that’s where she’d been holed up since Simon had been taken. She always brooded in the engine room.

“You don’t want ‘im back, do you?” she accused, hands on her hips. She wanted to believe what he’d told her. He’d never lied to her, not really. But the more days that passed, the more faith she lost in her Captain. It was unreasonable, and she knew it, but she was scared and hurt and worried and she just couldn’t bring herself to care about anything else.

“Think River wouldn’t slit my neck in my sleep if I so much as thought that?”

Inara, who had been watching this exchange quietly until now, finally felt the need to speak up in Mal’s defense. “Mei mei –” Inara tried to rest her hand on Kaylee’s shoulder but she shrugged it away.

Blinking back angry, humiliating tears, Kaylee snapped, “Even Zoe an’ Jayne are ready to bust some heads. Why are we waitin’ so long?!”

“My plans ain’t exactly ever gone right. We gotta do this right or we aren’t gettin’ him back at all,” Mal said, hoping it would be enough to deter the upset mechanic. He swallowed an angry retort about this being why he didn’t like shipboard relationships. Kaylee had always been a smart, reasonable, young woman, and her thing with the doc had only complicated matters. “We’ve gotta be careful here.”

Kaylee took a deep breath, trying to force her mind to accept what they were telling her. She knew it was the right thing to do, be careful, wait and plan, but it had been so long and she was worried it would be too late. “Bein’ careful’s gonna get Simon killed.”

“Kaylee, you’re being irrational. Mal is doing everything he –“

“It ain’t enough,” she said sadly and left the room, before any of them could see the lone tear that slipped down her cheek.

Mal stared after her, sighing. “It never is.”

TBC

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