Mal shifted slightly and instantly regretted the movement. “Robert” had been very busy for a long stretch of time, and Mal was beginning to think that the only thing that saved his life in the last little session had been the blaring of the proximity alert. With a howl of rage, his tormentor had torn himself away from his grisly task and left him in semi-darkness.

He turned his head and looked at his fellow prisoner. Her skin was blanched white as snow but for the deep purple bruising around her temple and the mottled handprints at the base of her throat. “You all right?” he asked.

Elizabeth nodded jerkily and Mal realized that she was most probably in shock. “Elizabeth,” he said more firmly, mustering up strength from somewhere deep down. “Answer me.”

“Yes,” she breathed out quietly. “I’m all right. Cold, scared spitless, thirsty from screaming, but all right.”

“Not hungry?” Mal asked wryly.

“Not likely to be hungry ever again,” she replied glumly.

Mal smiled slightly. “Sounds about right,” he said. He paused for a moment. “About the screamin’, might be a good idea to hold back on that if you can.” Elizabeth looked at him dully. He cleared his throat and went on. “So far, this Robert fella doesn’t seem interested in you so much. I’m thinkin’ that we wanna keep it that way long as we can. No need for both of us to get….” His words trailed off, realizing that to end the sentence with the word “corpsified” would not be exactly the way to aid Elizabeth’s emotional state overmuch.

“I’ll try to be quiet,” Elizabeth replied in a small voice. She did not add that it was more than a little difficult to watch quietly as the monster tortured the Captain. She closed her eyes tiredly, but still the images of what had happened in the last session were seared onto her eyelids.

Satisfied that for the moment she was all right, Mal took an inventory of his own injuries. He wiggled his hands slightly, trying to see if any of his fingers were still unbroken. The answer was swift and painful. No luck there. When his head stopped spinning from that little experiment, he moved his right leg slightly. Badly bruised, but not broken, he thought with a small degree of satisfaction. Apparently Robert was much more skilled with a knife than a sledgehammer. One out of two legs was not so bad, he thought. Of course, the small voice in his back brain added wryly, it wasn’t so good either. Assuming that somehow he and Elizabeth could unshackle themselves from the gorram walls, he could hardly fight the hundan off with useless hands and one leg. Not to mention that he was feeling a mite weakened by blood loss, having long ago lost count of the stab wounds the psycho had inflicted. Though nothing major had been hit just yet, he conjured that, cumulatively speaking, he was running low on essential bodily fluids. Any which way he looked at it, things were not going well.

XXXXXXXXXX

River sat beside Adam’s bed in the cabin aboard the Hit or Miss, for the first time praying that her son would have another nightmare. She could feel Mal only faintly now, a passing shadow barely discernible amidst the anxiety she felt both from herself and everyone else aboard. She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, trying to hold on to the slender thread for as long as possible.

Beside her, Adam began to twitch restlessly in his sleep.

XXXXXXXXXX

Simon stepped onto the bridge and scowled at his patient. “You know you shouldn’t be up,” he said. “You’re barely off the more aggressive of the pain meds. That is hardly the recipe for responsible piloting of a ship this size.”

Pierre shrugged. “I’m perfectly capable of flying the Hit or Miss with one eye closed and one hand tied behind my back, Doctor. A little pain medication is unlikely to affect my skills that drastically.” He paused for a moment. “Besides, Marcus needed the rest. He’s…well, let’s just say he’s dealing with something he’s never dealt with before.”

Simon nodded unhappily. “Can I at least check my work?” he asked.

Pierre leaned back. “As long as it can be done quickly,” he said. “I’m scanning for any small ships in the area. Don’t want to miss one while you have a look.”

“I’ll be quick,” Simon replied, donning a pair of gloves and gently probing Pierre’s incision sites. Satisfied that the tissue looked healthy, he removed the gloves and slipped them into his pocket. “Everything looks good. How do you feel?”

“Physically? All right,” Pierre said. “Emotionally…like I need to do something to get my own doctor back on board, no offense to you, of course.”

“None taken,” Simon said dryly. “As I happen to agree. Apart from the fact that she is a good friend of mine and that she happens to be with my also missing brother-in-law and Captain, we need her back here right away for your next surgery.”

“That doesn’t matter. I think we can worry about that when they’re back safe,” Pierre said a little gruffly.

Simon said nothing, though he knew that Pierre was well aware that to wait longer than a day or two for the next surgery would likely mean that the scarring around the edges of the grafts would be more pronounced than it would be if the surgeries could be completed as he and Elizabeth had planned. With that unspoken knowledge hanging between them like a lead weight, the two men stared out at the Black, hoping for a sign as to where their friends might be.

XXXXXXXXXX

Marcus tossed in his bed, unable to sleep despite his exhaustion. He closed his eyes, willing himself to breathe deeply and calmly. That way lay madness, he thought, as he inhaled the scent of Elizabeth’s shampoo on his pillow. He grabbed the pillow close and swung his long legs out of bed. Turning on the light, he reached for the scrap of paper Jayne had found in the alleyway. Knowing it would be like picking at an open wound, he read his lover’s note anyway, though he’d memorized the words already.

Anger, hot and liquid, boiled through his veins as he thought of what might be happening to Elizabeth and Mal even now. He remembered the picture Adam had drawn, the one that revealed so vividly what the boy in the dreams had seen. And Marcus did something he had not done for longer than he cared to admit. He dropped to his knees and prayed.

XXXXXXXXXX

Thinking that at least it was a good thing that Mal had found some relief in sleep, Elizabeth curled up as best she could in her chains and tried to do the same. Their captor’s appearances in their prison were haphazard at best, and she prayed that perhaps he would be gone for longer this time. Every minute he stayed away was a minute that Marcus might be able to find them, she thought with as much optimism as she could muster.

No sooner had the thought entered her head than the door swung open slowly. Elizabeth pulled her aching body up with difficulty. Knowing as she did that there was no way to tell which personality would be walking through the door, she did not intend to be caught lying down when her tormentor entered the room. He appeared in the doorway, backlit by the light in the corridor. She watched him warily, trying to discern which man she was seeing.

He stood there for a nerve-stretchingly long time, hesitating on the threshold. Elizabeth glanced quickly at Mal and saw that he still slept. Turning her attention back to the doorway, she watched as the man entered the room slowly, almost as if he were sleep-walking. She breathed deeply, trying to control the pounding of her heart.

He knelt beside her, his eyes wide with what looked incongruously like genuine fear. He swallowed nervously and held his hands tightly together in his lap.

Elizabeth studied his face carefully. Her mind whirred with the possibilities of who or what he might be at this moment. Certainly not Robert, she thought with more than a small amount of relief. And not the other one either, the one who had come so perilously close to raping her before Mal had intervened. This one was different, surely. But what that difference would mean to her was painfully unclear.

She realized that she was holding her breath. Perhaps that could account for the ringing in her ears, she thought with a touch of hysteria. Exhaling slowly, she tried to maintain at least an outward veneer of calm.

“You’re pretty,” he said abruptly, making Elizabeth jump. “’Cept for the big bruise and all.” His voice sounded much more high-pitched than the one she had come to dread hearing.

She swallowed thickly. “Thank you,” she answered.

He nodded, a boyish grin blooming across his face. “I like ladies with yellow hair,” he volunteered.

“Do you?” Elizabeth said carefully.

“Uh huh,” he said softly. “My neighbor, Ms. Sandidge, has yellow hair, and she’s real pretty.”

“And where does Ms. Sandidge live?” Elizabeth asked, trying to glean what information she could from this talkative personality.

“Right next door to my house,” he said, abandoning his crouching position to sit cross-legged beside her.

“And where do you live?”

“Persephone,” he said easily. He looked at her intently. “What’s your name?”

“My name is Elizabeth.” She paused for a moment, wondering about the advisability of asking his. Deciding there was nothing to do but try to find out, she asked. “What’s yours?”

“Bobbie,” he said, grinning.

“And how old are you, Bobbie?”

He held up one hand and the index finger of his other hand. “Six,” he said proudly. “Gonna be seven in a coupla months.”

“Bobbie,” she said carefully, praying that she was not about to do something irreparably stupid. “Do you know where we are?”

Bobbie frowned, confusion flitting across his face. “On a ship, right now,” he said slowly.

“Do you know where we’re going?” she asked.

He thought for a moment and then grinned. “Going to see Daddy, I think,” he said.

“Oh, that sounds nice,” Elizabeth said, smiling encouragingly. “And where exactly is your daddy?”

Bobbie bit his lip for a moment, thinking. “A place on Hera,” he said. “Daddy’s a soldier. He told me there’s this really important place called Serenity Valley, and he’s there right now. I can’t wait to see him.” He stopped talking abruptly, and Elizabeth held her breath, wondering if Robert was about to make an appearance. The man frowned. “I got a lot to tell ‘im when I see ‘im. He’s been gone a long time.”

“What things do you have to tell him?” Elizabeth asked softly.

Bobbie shrugged, clearly not happy with the turn of the conversation. “Just things,” he whispered.

“Bobbie,” she said, changing the subject quickly. “I need you to do something for me please.”

“What?” he asked.

“My wrists are hurting,” she said, inclining her head toward the shackles. “I think they would feel much better if I could rub them, don’t you?”

Bobbie bit his lip thoughtfully. “Maybe,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Maybe you could find a key for me, so that my wrists wouldn’t hurt so badly,” she suggested gently. “Please.”

He began to shake his head from side to side. “I don’t think I can do that,” he whispered, his eyes suddenly as wide as saucers.

Elizabeth swallowed thickly, aware she was playing with fire. “I’m sure you can, if you try,” she said.

“I don’t know where the keys are,” he said. “And I don’t think he would like me to, anyways.”

“Who?” Elizabeth asked.

Bobbie sighed. “I don’t know his name. Only he’s mean. And he’s….he’s the one that brought me here, the one that hurt your head too. And I’m just a little boy, and he’s really big…and scary.”

“I know,” Elizabeth said soothingly. “I think he’s scary too. But Bobbie, you have to help me, please. If you don’t help me,” she paused for effect. “Well, I’m afraid that if you don’t help us, he’s going to hurt us even more. And then, I might not be able to talk with you anymore. And I like talking with you very much.”

Bobbie stared at her for a long moment, his longing for someone nice to talk to warring with his instinct for self-preservation. “I can’t help the Browncoat over there,” he said finally. “That would be very bad.”

“But you could help me, couldn’t you?” she said, smiling gently. “Maybe the key is in your pocket. I know I find things in my pocket that I didn’t know I had all the time.”

He frowned, but his hand went into his pocket obediently. He drew out the key, a surprised expression on his face. “How did that get in there?” he asked in something akin to wonderment.

“I’m not sure, but I’m so proud of you for finding it,” she praised. Rattling her chains lightly, she said, “Now if you’ll just put the key in this little hole…” She looked up, indicating the chain around her right hand. Bobbie rose to comply. “What a good boy you are,” she said encouragingly, her heart near to bursting with the thought of freedom.

He froze, his hand at the lock. Looking down at her, he blinked slowly. An ugly sneer curled his lip and his eyes turned black with sudden fury. “How dare you, you little pofu,” he roared.

Elizabeth drew back as far as she could from Robert, but unfortunately it was nowhere near far enough.

XXXXXXXXXX

To be continued