“I can’t!” Grace was awake, and very upset. “Please! Take it away from me. Please.”

Nightmares had plagued her sleep, her mind flittering uncontrolled through the crew, picking up on their thoughts, on all the hidden things they never wanted anyone to see, and she didn’t want to, but couldn’t stop.

“Grace, I can’t.” Simon shook his head.

“Please!”

“I took an oath. This, what you have, is natural. I can’t damage –” His vision blurred and he could hear –

“Grace.”

The girl looked at Freya, and Simon refocused. “I can’t control this,” she said, her eyes tearing again. “I don’t know how. I don’t want to see … to feel … Zoe and Wash, her pain is still so alive. You and Alice … I can’t take how it makes you cry in the night, Mal holding you so tightly because he feels the same. And River … what they did to her … to you … Even with –“ She looked back at Simon. “Please.”

“I can’t,” Simon reaffirmed. “Besides, now we know they’re not real, surely we can stop them from taking us over.”

“You don’t know anything!” Grace shouted. “I could make you kill each other and not be able to stop myself!” she covered her face with her hands. “Take it away! I don’t want to see it!”

Freya held her close, rocking her gently. “It’s all right.”

“It isn’t!” the girl wailed. “You can’t stay awake forever! And I saw what that drug did. If you gave me that –”

“No!” Freya took a deep breath. “If you saw that then you saw what it did to me. I can’t let Simon do that to you, not even if you want it.”

“Freya, please!”

Mal, not wanting to be too far from his wife, looked at them. “Can you sedate her again at least?” he asked quietly. “Or would that be against your rules?”

Simon flashed him a look of fierce anger, but nodded slowly. He looked back at the girl. “It won’t help, though. She needs control, and she can’t learn that if she’s asleep.”

“It won’t be enough,“ the girl sobbed.

Freya lifted Grace’s chin to look into those eyes. “It would take the edge off, perhaps. Make it easier to control the anger.”

“Yes.” Grace nodded. “It is anger. I can feel it inside me, and all it wants to do is burst out.”

“Control it.”

“I'm trying.”

“Remember what you saw. How to visualise it.” She didn’t break eye contact, opening up her mind again. “Focus, Grace.”

“Simon.” Mal nodded at the young doctor, jerking his head over his shoulder. Simon followed him outside. “Can you stop this?”

The young doctor glanced back into the infirmary. “She’s right – Naxom would break all the connections, like it did with Freya. But I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because whatever she feels, however much she hates this, it’s natural.” Simon’s face was dogged, resolute.

“Even if she never wanted it in the first place.”

“Even then.”

“But she’s right, doc. Freya can’t stay awake forever, and this ain't doing her any good.” He watched his wife talking quietly to the girl. “Look at her, Simon. This is taking too much out of her.”

“You want to be the one to tell her to stop?”

“Not if I value any portion of my anatomy, no.” Mal sighed. “Isn’t there something temporary? Something you can give Grace just to shut her down for a while? Let us all get some sleep?”

Simon thought for a moment. “There is a drug called Heretofen. It’s used on schizophrenic patients to …” He paused. “I'm not happy about this, Mal.”

“I know. This Herto –“

“Heretofen.”

“How long do the effects last?”

“On the people it’s meant for, the dosage is 10cc every eight hours. But this would be experimentation.”

“Can you try it?”

“Are you making it an order?”

“Do I have to?”

They glared at each other for a long moment, then Simon nodded. “I’ve got some on hand.”

“River?”

“I tried it, but she broke it down eventually. Grace probably will too.”

“Even if it only lasts a while, it’d give her a break.” Mal looked into the infirmary again. “Both of them.” ---

“Mal, I think I've got something,” Hank said as Serenity’s captain stepped onto the bridge.

“Show me.”

Hank punched the Cortex back on the screen. “Medori Sati.” A picture of a beautiful raven-haired woman filled the viewer, her green eyes smiling.

“Sati?”

Hank shrugged. “I can’t find another Medori of the right age.”

“That’s her,” Inara said from behind them, and both men turned to look at her.

“You sure?”

“She hasn’t changed much in eighteen years, Mal.”

“What was the context of the information?” he asked his pilot.

“Um, report of a society function. Just gives a list of names and the venue.”

“Where?”

“Athens.”

“How long ago –“

“Hank? Serenity’s back on-line.” Kaylee’s voice sounded exhausted over the com. “You can tell the Cap’n –“

Mal thumbed the switch. “I heard. Good work, xiao mei-mei. She gonna hold together?”

“Captain,” she said pointedly and clicked off.

Mal grinned, imaging the look on her face. “Okay, Hank. How long?”

“We’re lucky,” Hank said. “Athens is at its closest point to us right now. Less than a day.”

“Good. Get it laid in and take us off this moon.”

“We’re gone, Mal.” He started to input the code.

Mal turned to Inara. “You should get some rest.”

“I'm fine.”

“No, you’re not. You seen yourself lately?”

“Thank you for that wonderful compliment,” she said witheringly, turning and walking out of the cockpit.

“Just thought you might not know,” he replied, following her into the galley. “Can’t be easy.”

“What can’t?” She pulled open a drawer and removed one of her scented teabags.

“Finding out your precious Guild ain’t so high and mighty after all.”

“Are you trying to pick a fight?” she asked, turning on him, colour flaring in her cheeks. “Because if that’s what you’d like, I'm more than willing to oblige.”

“Just stating the facts,” he said, sitting down in his chair and propping his feet on Freya’s, feeling Serenity lifting off.

“Mal …” She couldn’t speak. He could make her feel exasperated with barely a word, he’d got it down to such a fine art, and she squeezed the teabag so hard it burst in her fingers. “Oh, in the name of suo-yo duh doh shr-dang.” She dropped the fragments into the bin and brushed the leaves from her hands.

“I think we’re a bad influence on you,” Mal said conversationally. “Your language is beginning to leave a lot to be desired.” He glanced across at her. “They give you demerits for that too?”

“It’s the rules, Mal!” she said loudly, her voice carrying to the bridge where Hank decided to make like he wasn't there. “You don’t break the rules!”

“And if the rules are wrong?” He swung his feet back to the floor and stood up. “What then? Who gets to change them if people don’t say they’re wrong?”

“And go to war?”

“If needs be!”

They were staring at each other from only a few inches apart, and Inara wanted to take hold of him, shake some sense into him. Or kiss him, she wasn’t quite sure which.

“Sir, there are people trying to get some sleep, here,” Zoe said from the doorway. “So if you’re going to fight, do you think you could go and do it someplace else?”

“We disturbing you?”

“Yes sir.” She stared at him.

“Then … we’ll try to keep it down.”

“Thank you, sir.” She gave them both one more look then headed back for her bunk.

“How can she sleep after that?” Inara asked, leaving the closeness of his blue eyes and heading back behind the counter.

“After what?”

“Those hallucinations.”

“We don’t know what she saw,” Mal pointed out.

“Our greatest fears …”

Mal sighed. “’Nara, six years we lived with our greatest fears, every day. And since then we’ve had people taken away from us too. I think Zoe knows how to get some rest after that. Even if she ain't actually sleeping.”

“Mmn.” Inara took a second bag from the drawer and dropped it in her cup.

“Why are you still supporting them?” Mal asked finally. “The Guild. On their side. They’ve done nothing but harm you and yours.”

“It isn’t like that.”

“Then tell me what it is like, then.”

“I tried before.”

“Then try again. I’ll attempt not to be so dense this time.”

She looked over at him. “Everyone has to live by rules. Even you. Yours might be slightly different to other people’s, but they’re still rules.”

“That still doesn’t make what they did right.”

“It isn’t. Oh, Mal, I agree with you. But things change slowly. The Triumvirate are aging, there might be new blood soon. Things will change.”

“That doesn’t exactly help that little girl in the infirmary.”

“I'm sorry, Mal, but I can’t explain it any better.” She sighed. “Everything has to change … or die.”

“What happened, Inara?” He gazed at her. “Something you’re not telling me.”

“Things happen, Mal.”

“Yeah, like you falling in love with me.”

It still hurt that he didn’t say it the other way around. “Other things.”

“Like what?”

She shook her head. “No. They’re not something I intend to discuss with you.”

“To do with me?”

“No.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Believe what you want. You always do.”

“You think I'm that shallow?”

“Mal, don’t ask me. It will only cause a fight, and Zoe will come and tell us off again.”

“That she would.”

Inara poured hot water onto the tea bag, then asked, almost in passing, “What did you see?”

“Frey. Dying.” His words conveyed none of the powerlessness he had felt, the overwhelming pain. “You?”

“Something like that.” She didn’t elaborate, feeling too ashamed that her own greatest fear seemed to be the loss of her beauty, not realising it was the loss of control that came with it that was worse.

Mal looked at her, sure there was more to it, but wasn’t going to ask. “Well, I'm gonna check on Frey, then I’m turning in for a while. Best you get some sleep too.”

Inara nodded and watched him leave the galley with guilty eyes. ---

“You mustn’t argue,” River said in his ear as he walked down the stairs.

He tried, successfully, not to jump. “Albatross, what did I tell you about creeping up on people?”

“That it was girly and impulsive?”

“Nope, pretty sure that wasn't it.”

“That I can do it to everyone else but not the captain?”

Mal turned and looked into her face. “That’s it. So how come you ain’t?”

“You mustn’t argue with Inara. She can’t help being afraid to leave the Guild.”

“Leave?” Mal shook his head. “She won’t do that.”

“She’s considering it. Has been considering it for a long while now, ever since Tetris. Perhaps before.”

He looked above her, almost as if he could see through the steel of Serenity into the heart of her shuttle. “Will she?”

“She doesn’t know what else she could be.”

“She’s my crew.”

River smiled and put her hand on his shoulder. “She can’t see that. You have to tell her. To be there when she decides, whatever that decision finally is.”

“River …”

The girl was past him in a flash and running down the stairs to her room. “Just be there.”

“River, wait.” He used his captain’s voice, and she stopped at the bottom.

“Yes sir?” she asked, looking back up at him.

“Why ain’t you been to talk to Grace? You might be able to help her.”

“I would, but it isn’t me she needs right now. It’s a mother.”

“Well, we’re trying to find –“

“No, not her.” River suddenly grinned. “Freya.” And she was off, her dark hair flying behind her.

He shook his head. Sometimes that girl … He carried on down into the common area, then stopped. There was Freya, sitting on the sofa, her arm around Grace who lay with her head in his wife’s lap. They looked so natural, so at peace that he smiled. He picked up one of the throws and gently laid it over the young girl, then another over Freya.

“Hi,” she said, lifting her head.

“I thought you were asleep,” he accused.

“No. Just sitting.” She smiled at him.

“Is she asleep?”

“Mmn. Simon dosed her up and at least her dreams seem peaceful now.”

“How come she isn’t in the infirmary?” he asked, going down onto his heels to look her in the eyes.

“She wanted to be somewhere else, and Simon said it was okay.” Freya looked down and stroked the girl’s dark hair.

“You know she’s not yours.”

She lifted her face to his. “I know. But she needs our help.”

“And we’ll give it.” He put his hand on her knee. “But she isn’t Alice.”

“I know that.” She shook her head at him. “I really do. But all I keep thinking is that if … if Alice were in this position, I’d want people to help her. To be there for her.”

“We are.” He lifted himself up to sit next to her.

“You should go to bed,” she said, glad to feel his warmth next to her, nevertheless. “The captain needs his beauty sleep.”

He grinned. “Ain't I pretty enough?” he asked, then nudged her. “’Sides, you know I can’t sleep without you next to me.” He lifted the blanket so it was over both their knees. “Was it difficult? Letting Grace in, I mean?”

She nodded, her face taking on an aspect of sorrow that he hated with a will and wanted to kiss away. “All those things I’d pushed out of my mind. All laid bare. So many things I’ve seen, done, had done to me …”

“Are you okay now?”

She looked at him. “Yes. It’s odd, but … yes. I feel light. Almost …” She stopped.

“Almost what?”

“Healed.” She smiled at him, and his heart lifted. “Like I do when we make love.”

“You feel orgasmic?”

She laughed and elbowed him in the ribs. “You know what I mean.”

“I think I do.” He put his arm around her, pulling her closer. “Maybe River was right.”

“What about?”

“That this could help both of you.”

“Maybe.” Freya snuggled carefully into his shoulder, not wanting to disturb the sleeping girl. “I only know I want to try and make things better for her.” Her eyelids fluttered to her cheeks.

“We will, ai ren. We will.” He closed his eyes, just to rest them for a while.

to be concluded (I promise!)