They had his sister. They were on another pathetic little terraformed moon, like all of the other go-se dumps where the Captain did his business, and they wanted to get off the ship. Just to see something besides the confines of Serenity. Just to eat some real food, however uncultured, just something made with human hands that an animal had to die for. Just to feel dirt under his heels, and even smell horseshit in to road, and most of all to feel the sun on his face. My God, the thought of smelling horseshit is actually becoming an appealing one to me. How much further am I going to sink before this is all over? But most of all, Simon wanted a break from Kaylee, however brief it might be. He needed that in the worst way. Simon had grown into a mass of conflicting impulses which got only worse whenever she was around him. Even Inara had no such effect on him. As beautiful and seductive and just plain sexy as Inara was, she was also the closest thing to Simon’s level of culture on board Serenity, and she could conduct herself and converse with him in ways he found so wonderfully familiar, he could sit and enjoy her company all day. Simon, of course, wanted to bed Inara as much as any man ho favored women did, but all he ever really wanted to be was friends with her, to remember his life before. Kaylee, however, had a very different effect on him. She was so, just, there, so available, so eager to be available to him, it clouded his head. A year or two ago, working on Osiris, living in his vulgarly luxurious apartment, filled with vulgarly luxurious things, he would have had a hard time hiring Kaylee as a maid, but here he was now, studying every curve of her body when she wasn’t watching him, finding excuses to be around her, only to consistently lose his nerve once there and say something infinitely stupid to push her away from him. But to go to Kaylee’s bed, a path she had all but mapped out for him, for even ten minutes, would be ten minutes he would take his attention from River, and that was the whole point of this, wasn’t it? River needed his constant attention, non-stop, because, as Captain Reynolds was all too fond of reminding him, River was unpredictable. There was no mapping out her potential actions, because there was still no way of mapping out what had been done to her at the Academy. He wondered if he would ever be able to even determine what had happened there, let alone how to reverse it. Simon spent more time than he cared to admit considering the fact that River would spend the rest of her days living in the world that they had forced her into, in relative safety aboard Serenity, until she did something so outlandish (like a repeat of the carving knife incident or worse) that hey would have to be put off the ship once and for all. Simon had no illusions about how well they would do off of Serenity. He knew the Captain had draped a roughly protective wing over them, and that Zoë would protect them as well, even though he always got the sense that Zoë utterly detested him. She was kind enough to River, and that was enough for Simon, but he wondered if she harbored the level of divestment for him that he suspected. Even Jayne, who had undergone so much change since the thing on Ariel, but who was still so rough and uncivilized, took a protective eye to River, and even to Simon, after an effect. But none of that helped right now. River was gone. They took her right next to him. They were walking between wooden stores to what they were told was a puppet theater, a thing that fascinated River to no end. She was so far beyond anyone he knew intellectually, made him look like an idiot child, but now, a puppet show was more than she could take her eyes away from. He had been pushed face first into the side of a building while they threw a sack over her head and dragged her away. Two hard punches to his left kidney dropped him to his knees, and even as he tried to get up, a shot to the back of his head bounced hi face off the wooden side of the building, and they were gone. Miraculously, he retained consciousness, and radioed back to the ship. Help me, River’s gone.

The first to arrive were the Shepherd and Kaylee. They helped him onto the mule, and got him back to the shuttle parked in the middle of the street. “Why are we in a shuttle/” Simon asked. “Wash is already in the air, watching for any ships going off planet. Inara is in her shuttle, flying around looking for anyone getting prepped. Captain didn’t waste no time,” Kaylee said, trying to smile her eternal smile. “The Captain?” “Yup, he gave the order quicker’n spit, like he already had a plan,” she said. “Him and Zoë and Jayne are going around the town, trying to shake up what happened.” “Local lawman doesn’t seem too eager to get in the Captain’s way, son. You can be thankful for that much,” Book told him. “He will find who did this.” Simon tried to lift his head, but thought better of it. It didn’t feel like a concussion, but it was surely going to hurt him for some time to come. “We’re going to get you back to Serenity so’s you can patch yourself up,” the preacher said.

Onboard Serenity, Simon prepared himself a cocktail of morphine and Dexedrine, injecting it into the muscle, not the vein, so the impact would be slightly less intense. He needed to kill the pain in his head and face if he were to think right, but he needed to keep himself up as well. Mal and Jayne were both in town, according to Zoë, who was on board. The local Sheriff was staying out of the two men’s ways, being as how Jayne had stuffed the lawman into one of his own jail cells and broken a key off in the cell’s lock. Nobody had a bit of difficulty imagining that, or Jayne being the one to do it. It was a pretty safe bet that these were not bounty hunters grabbing River for a reward, because Simon was named in the warrant, and he had been treated as more of an obstacle than anything else. “Then why would they want her/’ Simon demanded. “She’s a sixteen year old girl with no services to offer, why would hill folk want to snatch her?” “They’re not hill folk,” Zoë said in that very flat tone of hers that River once told him scared her so much. What Simon had not told her was the fact that it scared him as well. “Wash has flown over all over the outskirts of the settlements on this rock, and Inara has covered what he missed. There’s no settlements to speak of, outside of the odd hunting shacks.” “Captain’s working with the individuals we were working for do put this together, son,” the Shepherd told him. Wash walked into the infirmary and told them, “And Jayne is doing a pretty good job frightening everyone that Mal isn’t talking to.” Zoë closed her eyes briefly. “What is he doing now?” “Well, you know about the sheriff, right?” Zoë nodded. “The grenade, too?” Zoë opened her eyes at that. “Apparently not. It seems Jayne rigged the cell up with one of his grenades, already armed, to blow if anyone cuts it open.” “All right,” Zoë said. “So suffice it to say we have alienated law enforcement in this town. What else?” “You know about the saloon, right?” “Oh, God, what did he do?” “Well,” Wash said. “Apparently someone there told him to go get humped while Jayne was making his…..discrete inquiries. And, apparently, Jayne took issue with that sort of a statement.” “And….?” “And he burned the place to the ground.” Zoë stood up and rubbed her face. “So, we have added arson to our list of offenses on this world.” “It would appear so, yes. The good news is that no one has tried going off world yet, so we know River is still here.” The Shepherd looked troubled, or at least that was how Simon took him to be. The shot was keeping him wide awake, but no less stoned, and just a touch nauseous--I’m dope-sick, that’s what the junkies call it--but still in the conversation. “Preacher, are you alright?” Book spoke to Zoë instead of answering him. “Zoë, get Inara back here if you can, and the Captain as well.” “Something on your mind, preacher?” “Could be. Could be trouble coming this way faster than any of us want to see it. And perhaps we can call Jayne back before he breaks every commandment in my bible today.”

In the common area, around the dinner table, Inara spoke. “The Shepherd’s idea is right. River wasn’t taken for a bounty.” She was standing in front of the table, facing the seated crew. “And I think it’s safe to say that none of the townspeople know where she is at this point,” she said, looking at Jayne. “Did you really burn down a saloon?” Wash asked. “Oh, hell, yeah, a hardware store too, when--” “Jayne!” It was Zoë. “Let Inara speak her bit!” “Oh c’mon, Zoë, no need to get all huffy with me, Mal thought it was pretty funny--” “Huh? Wha? No I didn’t!” Mal had a caught look on his face. “I never said that was funny!” “Mal, ya just about pissed y’self watching!” Zoë and Inara both looked hard at them, disapproval pouring out of their eyes. Neither Wash nor Book would look at one another. “Are you children finished?” Inara said coldly. “Yes, yes, Inara, don’t mind us, Jayne got a mite caught up in the moment,” Mal said. Jayne opened his mouth to say something, and Mal shot him a look, shutting Jayne’s mouth abruptly. “Simon, this is going to be very hard for you to hear, and I am not going to try to soften it. We still have a chance to get River back,” Inara said. “Both within and without the Companion’s guild, from the finest houses to the lowliest whorehouses, there are stories about girls and boys--young girls and boys--being grabbed to be put to work in what the Guild refers to as “Fetish halls.” Simon, I know you look at River and see you troubled and damaged sister, but there are plenty who would look at her and just see a pretty teenage girl, a pretty teenaged girl whom they can use. “I have waved a couple of my contacts across the cortex to see if she is on auction. Simon, I am sorry to tell you that she is.” “What kind of……….auction?” Simon asked, trying to wrap his mind around all of this. Inara looked down at the table, and Book gently prodded her, “Tell the boy everything.” “She will be sold to a fetish hall and put to work there for as long as her looks hold out for her, and then she will be sold to something much worse,” Inara breathed deep, and went on. “There are those people in the ‘verse who like to hurt, and then there are those who like to do much worse, and there are even others who like to watch captures of this happening. When a young girl or boy is used up in a fetish house, they will be sold and………raped and killed on capture.” Simon put his head down and trembled, and then made a run to the common area sink and threw up violently. No one else said anything. Mal, Jayne, and Zoë looked at the table, Inara and Book looked at each other and Simon, and Kaylee looked around wide eyed for someone to say that this wasn’t true. Now it was Book’s turn. “It gets worse than that, “ the preacher started. “These auctions go on across the cortex, typically for three days, to drive up the highest price. The real bidding won’t typically start until the last two or three hours of the auction, but early on a few bids will be thrown out there, typically by the sellers themselves, just to get some action going. “That means that River’s various pictures are out on the cortex. Simon, I’m deeply, honestly sorry, but I’ve already been on the cortex, and they are not pretty. Best that you don’t look yourself.” “The Shepherd and I looked together, Simon, and he’s right, it’s probably best--” “Fuck what’s probably best!” Simon spit with a venom that made even Jayne and Zoë flinch. Kaylee looked like she had been slapped. “her picture is on the cortex, you say? That means the alliance can see her on there.” “Simon, I only meant that the sort of photos-” Inara began. “Inara, I am a doctor. I have seen more of the human body, in all of it’s circumstances, than anyone in this room. I can imagine the pictures, and when this is over, I will have plenty of time to think about those kinds of pictures of my sister, but I am more worried right now about the Alliance.” The shepherd had stepped out of the commons area and now came back. “The good doctor is no one’s fool,” Book said. “He’s right. By now, Alliance has seen the pictures, and they are tracking her down right here. So we need to move fast.” Mal spoke up. “We know she’s planet-side, but that is still a big area to cover. How do we move fast?” “There’s a fueling station, about 40 miles out of town, west-side,” Book said. “Inara made her calls, I made mine. It’s a good likelihood that she is there, underground bunker.” “Preacher, would you like to tell me exactly who you called to divine that little piece of information?” Mal asked, his voice hard. All eyes were on Book now. “That, Captain, is a longer story than I have time to tell right now, dong-ma?. I think we need to give more thought right now to how we hit this bunker and get the good doctor’s sister out of there.”

The plan was simple and straightforward, which please Jayne enormously. Go in and shoot everyone. None of this intelligence gathering go-se, no being subtle and leaving no trail. Just go in, blow shit up, and kill people. He could do that. He was very good at doing that. And that helped him keep his calm. Zoë had calm, so did Mal. So did the preacher, and Jayne expected he knew more about that than anyone would have guessed. You needed calm to do a job like this. The doc was no good for this, he had too much rage in him, and Jayne didn’t fault him that for a second, he thought more of the doc than he ever would have let on, but rage was useless here, Oh, sure, you could do a fine peck of killing in a rage, but you could also get everyone around you killed as well, because your vision narrowed too deeply in a rage, and you forgot about your team. Rage was for a man on his own. Kaylee was putting together bombs for the fueling depots, and for their escape. The girl could make things go, no doubt about that, but the girl could also make things go boom, too. She said it was all just a matter of machines, in the end, and one way or another, they all talked to her. Inara was doing her part circling overhead in her shuttle to get them all out when the time was right, and Wash was keeping the ship ready and able to blow town at a moment’s notice. None of this was complicated, and that was how Jayne liked the things in his life. Zoë had point, with a 20-guage pump. Mal was shortly behind her, rifle in hand, with the preacher just after him, carrying a lever action rifle with a six-shooter tucked in his waistband. He had left his preacher’s collar behind for an all black assault uniform. Simon followed with a large pistol of Jayne’s in his two hands. All three were completely against Simon being there, but Book, backed up by Inara, pointed out that a traumatized River was probably only going to listen to Simon. .Jayne brought up the rear, armed to the teeth, a smaller submachine gun strapped across his chest and his darling Vera over his shoulder. He had at least four pistols visible, and two big knives. (“Jayne, doesn’t all that metal slow you down?” Mal had asked. “Really, how much shooting can you honestly do?” Mal never understood that more weapons gave Jayne more calm.) A shack stood near to the fuel pampers, obviously the way to the bunker. Mal and Book stood to the left of the shack, Jayne to the right with Simon. Zoë stood at the door. One hour passed, and then another. Finally, two men came out of the shack, thug types, both broad built, one about 4 inches taller than the other, the shorter one baldhead. Neither wore anything one would call soldierly: light coats, t-shirts, denims. Jayne liked the shirt the taller one was wearing. He wondered if Zoë was going to make this clean or bloody. Clean, he might just grab the shirt before they left. Zoë reached behind her and drew out a three foot machete from a sheath strapped to her back. (Gorram it, there goes my shirt). She got comfortably behind them, made a fffft! With her mouth, and brought the machete around in an arc that took the shorter thugs head clean off his shoulders. Jayne winced at the clean brutality of the move. That woman was plain unsettling most of the time, and damn frightening when she wanted to be. Not missing a beat, she brought the weapon down and up, piercing the taller thug’s lower chin, and driving the blade into his brain. The others came up behind her. “Does your husband know you can do things like that?” Mal asked her. “Why do you think he said no to Saffron?” Mal shook a finger at her. “That was uncalled for.” “But true.” Inside the shack, there was a concrete block with a door on the left side of it. It was unlocked. Again, Zoë took point, and Jayne brought up their rear. She could have gone faster than she was going, but the security just seemed too damn lax. They should be meeting more resistance than this. The stairway ended, and a short hallway led to a common area. Four men were in the common area. Zoë looked to mal, who looked in turn to Jayne and Book. He held up three fingers, then two, then one, and they took the room. All four men had an individual weapon trained on them. “How many more?” Mal hissed. One of the men, a wiry, shortish man with a crew cut, showed Mal his middle finger. “Jayne,” Mal said. “Kill him.” The man opened his mouth, but Jayne already had his hand over it, taking the back of the man’s head in the other and spinning it around, snapping the man’s neck. Jayne eased his twitching corpse down to the ground to make as little sound as possible. “Try again. How many more?” Book’s target raised his hand and held up two fingers, whispering in the cells. In unison, Zoë, Book, and Mal brought the butts of their weapons down on the individual heads, rendering them unconscious. Weapons trained, except for Simon, they came around to the cells. There were ten cells, five in a row across from another. Four were empty. Two men sat in chairs at the end on the hallway, one appearing to be asleep, the other looking at a cortex readout, doubtlessly watching the bidding. All weapons were on the two men, but the teams eyes were on the cell’s inhabitants. There were six girls, one to a cell, all naked. River was in the third cell to the left, huddled in a corner. She was the oldest. The youngest looked to be in the neighborhood of six or seven years old. All showed signs of physical abuse, and God alone knew what other kind of abuse, a thought mal tried to keep his own mind from exploring. He looked at Zoë. “Any other rooms in this place?” She shook her head no. “No one else to hear us?” Se shook her head no again. He turned to Jayne, who was mumbling something under his breath in Chinese in a voice shakier than mal would have ever expected from the big mercenary. Zoë put a hand on Jayne’s arm, said something in Chinese back to him, which seemed to calm him. A little. Mal let loose with a stream of Chinese curses of his own. He reached into his coat, pulled his comm out, and called Inara. “Get down here with Kaylee and bring blankets.” “Mal, what’s going on?” “Gorrammit, woman, just do as you’re gorram told,” Mal growled into the speaker, and snapped it off, a lot harsher than he needed to. He stepped to the man closest to him. “You got keys?” The man nodded. Mal grabbed him by the hair and banged his head off the table three times, breaking them man’s nose. “Sorry, can’t quite hear you, I asked if you got the gorram keys?” he punctuated this with another bang off of the table. The man produced keys, which Jayne and Zoë used to open the cells. They all went to individual girls, Simon of course to River, murmuring to her “mei-mei, I’m here, mei-mei, I came, mei-mei,” River looked up at him and recognition crept into her eyes. “Simon? They touched me, Simon, they, he-” she pointed at the man mal had roughed up, “he made me, it hurt, oh God Simon, they made me hurt so much,” and her words dissolved into sobs. Tears rolled down Simon’s cheeks as he held his sister to his chest, and he did his mightiest to stifle his own sobs. Mal, Book, and Jayne instinctively took positions around Simon, and looked away. They should not look on a man gripped in this sort of devastation, he should be given the dignity to ride it out himself. Zoë filled a gap left by them. She was all woman, a single look told you that, but she was all soldier, and she understood the same rules that the others did. The other girls looked at them, not sure what was to come. Mal fumbled with keys on locks, and had no success. His frustration came to its head quickly, and he shot out the locks as Inara and Kaylee came down the stairs. Inara was ready to chastise mal for speaking to her in the manner he did until she saw the girls in their cells. She let out a long and involved string of curses in Chinese and English, and even Jayne was impressed by her color. “ I couldn’t agree more with you, your ladyship, but let’s get these girls wrapped up. We can always talk dirty later.” Jayne loved the sound of talk dirty, and then remembered where he was. “You want I should kill the rest of them?” Mal looked at the five prisoners, thought for a moment, and spoke. “I conjure the doctor here has some personal business with this fine specimen here,” Mal said, pulling the man’s head up again and giving his broken nose a fresh swat. “And far be it from any of us to interfere with a man and his business.” he looked into the man’s face with an evil grin. “I just know you understand, now don’t you?” Book spoke up at this. “Captain, and all, I am sure you understand my reluctance to be present for any executions, as just as they may seem.” “Shepherd, no one will think any less of you. I want you to help Inara and Kaylee get these young girls into the shuttle.” “Mal,” Inara said. “I will have to come back for you and the rest. I’d like to get River and these girls back to Serenity first.” “Can you handle them,” Zoë asked. “Actually, I can. Part of Companion training is rape and abuse counseling. Sometimes arrangements go bad, and girls get hurt, and we have to be able to take care of them,” she said. “I can handle this, Mal. Don’t worry about that.” “Counseling is a part of a Shepherd’s duties. I can only hope that I can help Inara with hers. Captain, could I have a word?” The two men stepped away from the others. “Captain, I am sure you mean to kill these men, and I have to specific quarrel with you on that, though I cannot participate, you understand.” Mal nodded. “I can, however, turn them over to authorities who won’t ask any questions.” “Shepherd, I have done my level best to show respect to you and your ways, but understand me in no uncertain terms: I will not have these men on my boat. Period. The doctor has some individual killing to do here, and it is not for me or you or you kind and loving Lord to interfere with him. This is a family matter for him, Shepherd, and you ought not to interfere with a man tending to his family. The rest of them will deal with me and Jayne and Zoë. Mostly Jayne. That man is about a hare’s breath away from tears at what he’s borne witness to today. He’s of a mind for some killing here tonight, and the only quarrel I will give him is the fact that I wouldn’t mind bloodying my own hands a mite after this fine affair. Zoë, I am sure, feels the same.” “Captain, I understand every bit of what you’ve just said, and in another time I would be doing some killing myself, but I had to give you the opportunity to do the Christian thing here before we all leave.” “Shepherd, Christ turned his back on these girls long before we got here. This is our business, not His.” The Shepherd knew there was really nothing much to say to that, and that he should let the conversation end on amicable terms. He looked at the men lined in front of him, and knew they were doomed, and found it difficult to drum up an ounce of pity for them. In the end, he simply shut his mouth and helped the two good women get the six girls onto Serenity. Kaylee said nothing, but seemed very grateful for a way out of that scene along with Inara and Shepherd Book. Jayne, was shaken, as were they all, thought the Doctor seemed lost in his sister. “Captain, I want to stay with River,” he said. Mal took a pistol out of his belt and handed it to Simon, without any words. Jayne and Zoë watched him intently to see what he would do. Simon, uncertainly, took the pistol from Mal, and pointed it at the man who had abused River. He thumbed the hammer back, and, his hand shaking badly with effort and force of will, blew the man’s right knee out. He howled with agony that Jayne shut up with a kick to the teeth Zoë put a hand on Simon’s upper arm. “Sweetie,” she said, using a rare term of endearment. “I don’t blame you one smidge for wanting to take him apart, and I’m proud of you to see you have it in you-” “Me too, doc,” Jayne added. “But we should really be on our way, because who knows how long the Alliance has been on its way here.” “She’s right, Simon,” Mal added, making a rare show of using Simon’s name. “Just do your business and let’s be on our merry.” “I am doing my business,” Simon said. “When I became a doctor, I took an oath. Do you know what that oath said? Do no harm. I have very little left out here, but I have my word, and you all need to know that Simon Tam’s word is good. I can’t just put a bullet in his rotten brain pan, but, if Jayne will help me get him in a cell, I can do something else.” Jayne helped Simon put the man in one of the empty cells, confused, but obedient. Simon went to his med kit and drew a syringe of something. “This is called compazine. It’s supposed to be a decent low-strength pain-killer, but one of the side effects compazine has on a lot of people is low grade panic attacks.” He put the needle in the man’s arm and pumped it empty. “I just gave him about eight times the normal dose,” he said, closing his med kit and going back to River. “In about ten or fifteen minutes, my friend here is going to absolutely tear himself apart. I wish I could be here to see it. He will more than likely claw his throat open, with any sort of luck at all. He will certainly claw out his eyes, for whatever he is going to see.” Simon grabbed the man by the jaw. “You have a nice night, my friend,” and hit him with all the force Simon could muster on his broken nose. No one really knew what to say to that, and focused on getting the girls wrapped in blankets and onto Inara’s shuttle. Not a word was said, even after Simon got on the shuttle with River, until Jayne, with a gentleness that was completely out of his natures, cradled the youngest girl up in his arms and saw the blood on the back of her thighs. He froze, and Mal and Zoë saw what he had seen, and couldn’t help but stare. Mal’s jaw set tighter, and a tear rolled down Zoë’s cheek. Kaylee came in at that moment, with Book, and saw what they had seen. Jayne’s jaw trembled stiffly, never a man for emotional shows-he had never seen a use for them-he was unsure how to act in such a time. The lump in his throat felt to choke him, and his head pounded with blood roaring through it. Book look at him, and at Zoë and the Captain, and told Kaylee, “Come along, child, get this poor young thing into the shuttle, we can come back for them shortly.” “But-” Through clenched teeth, Mal growled “Go away from here now, Kaylee.” Kaylee was scared, genuinely scared, when she saw the Captain like that, but she knew better than to hesitate. And so she went, leaving the five prisoners with their three captors. Jayne set Vera and all of his other guns down on the wooden table. “Give me that machete, Zoë,” he said flatly. “No.” he looked at her, and she looked at him, hard and unflinching. “Get your own gorram blade,” she said, setting her own firearms down on the table. “I got work of my own to be seeing to.”

It was not Inara’s shuttle that returned for the three of them, but the spare, piloted by Book. Jayne, Zoë, and Mal came on board without a word. All three were covered in blood. The shepherd never asked.

************************** “Will the girls get back to their homes?” Simon asked Inara. “Yes, they will. The Guild has considerable resources for locating missing children’s families. Being a legal and respectable business as Companioning is, we are very aware of the darker side of it. We’ll find their families. The good thing is that they had not been in captivity for so long, as they liked to auction them off immediately.” She sighed heavily. “I know the physical damages that were done, and the psychological and spiritual damages were awful as well. The Shepherd was amazingly good in counseling, especially for a man in this kind of situation.” “Yes, the Shepherd seems to be talented in a great many fields, doesn’t he?” Inara let that pass. Simon didn’t really mean to be venomous, she knew. And he needed a friend more than ever, which she also knew. Which is all he had ever seemed to want from her, a situation she found quite charming coming from a man who leaned towards women for sex, but only wanted her to be his friend. One of these days she was going to lead him by the hand into her shuttle, sit him on her couch, and give him a very serious talking to about Kaylee. But not today. “How is River?” she asked. “I find it difficult to be clinical about the physical damage done to her, but I probably don’t have to tell you, do I?” Inara shook her head no. “The emotional damage……..it’s so hard to see through all of the layers of psychoses that were jammed into her head as to what this has done to her. I am still hoping that it might just go away.” “Do you honestly think that is possible?” “I don’t know…..no, maybe, I’m not really thinking that far ahead, Inara. I’m just grateful to have her back. I thought I had lost her.” Simon surprised her right down to her silk slippers by showing a level of familiarity she had never seen from him, when he leaned over and kissed her lightly on her cheek. “Thank you, for all of your help, Inara.” Inara took his hand in hers. “Hard as it is to believe, Simon, we are a family on Serenity. I knew that the first day I saw this ship and met the Captain. We’re a family, and we take care of each other. I have no doubt in my heart you would do nothing less for me.” “Inara, can I tell you something?’ “Of course you can, Simon, anything at all.” “You are the only symbol of culture and gentility out here. Everything, and everyone else is just so rough. Or frightening. Or both. Except you.” “Trust me, Simon, I am certainly no angel.” “Inara, I just plunged a man into self-destructive paranoid hallucination, so I have no illusions about being angelic. And I’m stomping all over poor Kaylee’s heart every day.” Inara was not going to go into this today with Simon. That would keep. “I just…..I am not trying to get into your bed, Inara, I just would like it if we could be………..friends.” “Simon, I have known more men and women than I really would like to number for you, and in all of those relationships, I have been asked for my heart, my love, my body and all sorts of other things, but you are the first man to ever just ask me so honestly to be his friend.” She leaned over and kissed him lightly on his lips. “Thank you, Simon…..you just made me feel…..special.”

************************************** Zoë, Mal, and Jayne were sitting in the Captain’s quarters, a jug of homemade liquor and three glasses in front of them. Every once in a while one of them would take the jug and fill the three glasses, and they would drink. No one said a word.