Well, this is certainly new. I'm sitting all alone- that hasn't happened for, ohh... let's see now, five years? Six? Eight? A Hundred? Ah, fuck it, it's probably too long, anyway. Means I'll see her again all too soon- you think some people would stay dead, right? Eight, ten, twelve- two dozen, eight dozen, whoever I've ever known as than a name or face- a named face, if you will- they all had the means and the goodwill to stay dead- And, Hell, why not? They'd most likely not want to bother with me anyways- who would, after all? Mal has Inara, Zoë gets back Wash, Jayne gets his whores and Book gets his God. Everybody wins- oh, but now me. I get the short straw and keep up the charade of actually living. Sucks more to me, then. No, no, no, no, no, no, no no no no nonononononononononononononnonononononononono no no no, no, no, no, this don't seem right at all. Kaylee- well, I'd guess she stays on Serenity, doesn't she? I mean- they blew it up with her in it! Don't see how she can be closer- they died together Died in eachothers arms, as it were. That day was very much like when I lost my mother all over again. Except, you know... worse. Like, multiply by one point oh five- you get to that point where you really can't feel more like a pile of shit the world stepped in then when your home and, very likely, the girl you love, are gone while you watch with your eyes wide and your jaw slack and your head aching and your blood running and your friends dieing and your sister screaming- Sister. Oh, fuck it all, she's back. *** Some may ask when I became so violent- well, I ask you, why not? Sometimes, you just can't take it, when life has spit in your face so many times that you're swimming in it. After all, there is a point in time when I went from being "Doctor" to "Militant Anarchist". When was it? I dunno- probably sometime after Zoë died, but I could be wrong. Wait, did I say die? No, never say die- who said that? She was killed. Weren't no 'Blaze of Glory', no 'Last Hurrah' for good old Zoë Alleyene. She didn't take a dozen Purple Bellies with her, shotgun blazing and knife dripping, a smile on her face and a fierce gleam in her eye- She was beaten,, killed, then raped by three Alliance guards after she spat at their feet. Apparently, she was a low-level type, or else she'd have been taken to some type of hospital before they cremated her. Yep- no body, either! No grave beside Wash's and Books, no grave at all, no ashes to scatter- my friend Zoë is helping to pollute the air in some shithole Moon that the Alliance uses for political prisoners. 'Political'? That's a laugh- Zoë was about as ant-political as you can get- there was an "Us", and then there was a "Them"- nothing in between, there was "Us" versus "Them", and she was loyal to death to "Us" and no one else. Not that there was much of an "Us" after she went, though- Inara was gone, River was almost catatonic, and Kaylee refused to speak t anyone for almost three months. I can't really blame them, really. I mean, me and Jayne, we didn't like it, but we both accepted that going after her wasn't worth getting us all killed- that shitpoke moon was guarded across the equator with AA guns- get too close, and Boom, you're gone. That's why Mal flat-out refused to even try to get her back, although he nearly died with the grief of it- he lost his First ate and best friend. I guess me and Jayne differed slightly- while we were both pragmatists in it all, we had different reasons. He didn't want to get killed for a cause we all knew was hopeless; I didn’t want River to get killed for a cause we all knew was hopeless. River... *** She just sits there, at times- just on the small little couch in the small little apartment in the not so small city we got purposely lost in- well, not we per se- more that she followed me into the great big dark of this place. Sometimes, I'll be eating, and she'll sit straight across from I, and just stare at me. She never says anything, just sits and stares, almost like it's going right through me. Well, maybe it is. Afterall, I am as one with the ghosts of this burg. You can find me, but you'll never really see me. Not really- you can look right at me and see the Wall. So, I go about- eating, sleeping, drinking, sometimes fucking. She's always there, mostly. Sometimes, she'll turn away, or go for a little while- never had such a stretch without her as I did before- a dozen days, I think? Maybe two. The numbers or the hours don't matter, anyways. Anymore. Not anymore. Still, you'd think a dead person would have the courtesy to stay dead, right? Well, No, I guess. No no no no no no no. Afterall, I'm dead, aren't I? Yeah- I died back when everyone else did. *** My Fathers' passing never really affected me- not like Mother's did, anyway. It was just another fact, like that Worlds were round or Jayne was perverted or Kaylee was pretty pretty. A simple, nondisclosed wave- all settings, all channels, all directions. Mom didn't know where we were at the time- just that we were out in the Black with a way to catch that Wave. "Your Father is dead. Please come Home. All my Love, your Mother, Regan Tam." Just those words, and the slowly repeating capture of her face mouthing the words, slightly out of sync. There were no tears on her face, no tracks or traces of it, even- she either had put shove of crying or had no reason to. I like to believe the former, but, Hell- it's not like I'd blame her. Not like I can anymore, either. I told River, and she just looked at me blankly. I was about to tell her again, when she cut me off- "I know, Simon. I knew for a long time, now." *** There's this man- his name is Cain. At least, that's what he said his name was. He could be lieing- but, then again, it's neither my business nor my care. We shake hands, but his expression never changes- just like always, he says "Never a Once". Cain may be strange, but he delivers. And, of course, she was there. Just sat in a corner, like usual- if she wasn't incorporeal, I might think she'd have rubbed out a niche for herself by now. Ashes to ashes, then. Dust to dust, I guess. *** Cain had slipped into his usual jargon about what the chemicals were, and that was about the time I tuned out. It was a bad habit of mine, but, hey, if you bore me that bad, then you need a better topic. All I know is that I was back at my apartment with a suitcase full of little glass vials of blue and green fluids. Cain could have probably told you how many electrons were on each individual atom in them, but I didn't- nor did I need to; all I needed to know was that, when you mixed Chemical A with Chemical B, a little sugar, a little salt, shake well and add some luck and the final product would go Boom with a capital B. That suited me just fine.