Firefly - Unwelcome Housecalls

(Set after Objects in Space)

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Simon Tam looked at the readings from his diagnostic kit again. There was no way to be sure that the drug would work the way he had hoped. River's nightmares were becoming more and more frequent and her random outbursts were becoming harder and harder for the rest of the crew to understand. Simon had purchased some of the Grade 3 serum from an Orion class planet. It was blackmarket and extremely rare, the chemical had been smuggled out of the Alliance's top medical research facility.

Simon was afraid he could not meet the cost when Jayne beat the middleman into submission. After discovering that no more of the serum could be obtained, Jayne cut the man's throat. The middleman's body flailed on the ground until the crimson red pool of blood spread out everywhere. Zoe held Simon back, softly reminding him it was a hard luck universe. Jayne merely looked at the doctor and grunted out that they were now even.

The problem of course was that Simon had no idea how River would react to the new drug. There would be a point soon where her immune system would become resistant to the various doses he was giving her now. The doctor feared he was going to make her condition worse rather than better.

There was only one way to know for sure. And he was the only one with the same blood type as Rivers. If there was a cure, he wouldn't feel it, but if there were any painful side effects, he would take the brunt of them.

Simon Tam rolled up his sleeve and picked up the hypodermic. He thought about his sister as he injected himself.

----------

The planet Narssius was a run down piece of rock on the outer rim. There were a few old mines worth digging into and many poor homesteaders came looking for a new life. In one of the dusty towns, Mal, Zoe and Jayne had just finished delivering a few crates of smuggled supplies to the local mayor.

The one eyed man looked at Jayne curiously.

"You're cheating"

Jayne looked up with a mix of anger and sheepishness.

"I ain't cheating, you old goat"

Another fat poker player got up and pointed at Jayne with a grizzled finger. " This boy's been counting cards."

"He might be cheating, but don't assume he can count," Zoe blurted out as her hand moved to her rifle.

Suddenly several men around the room who had been having beer and whiskey turned slowly towards the poker table. Hands edged towards holstered weapons as Mal put both his hands up.

"Now , now, we aren't here looking for trouble. Let's think this through "

The one eyed man peered at Mal with a renewed interest.

"Your coat. I just noticed for the first time. It's brown , ain't it?"

Then the fat poker player drew his pistol out in a blur. Mal could only blink once as he saw the bore of the pistol in his face. Then a neat round hole appeared in the fat man's forehead. He gave off a puzzled look before he fell back to the floor. Dead before he hit the ground.

Suddenly everyone in the bar looked at the doorway at the appearance of a new player in town.

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"Next man to pull his gun on my crew, they die next"

Zoe's mouth dropped as she saw Simon Tam standing in teh doorway. He was wearing one of Jayne's battered T shirts that was too big for him and had his hair slicked back. There were a pair of pistol holsters strapped to his legs with a weapon in each hand. There was a look of fury in his eyes.

Suddenly a man behind the bar tried to raise his shotgun.

Without looking, Simon swung his left hand over and fired a single shot. The barkeep took the round in the eye and crashed backwards into his whiskey bottles. Another drifter at the bar jerked his head a little too quickly as Simon fired off another round, hitting the man in the knee. He sprawled to the ground and screamed in pain.

"Maybe I wasn't clear the first time," Simon roared out, " The next man that moves dies, and the man standing to his right gets shot too."

"Uh, time to leave, right Captain" Zoe said as she got up, grabbed Jayne and headed towards the doorway.

Then the one eyed man drew his pistol. Suddenly the bar was ablaze as other townsfolk joined in the melee. Mal leaped forward and pushed Zoe and Jayne to the ground as all three hit the floor. The Captain was astonished as bullets just whizzed by Simon, barely missing him. And there was the doctor, walking forward and calmly shooting both pistols with an eery deliberation. Before Mal could draw his own pistol, there were seven more dead men in the room. The doctor was fast, scary fast and those skilled surgeon hands had a secret knack for dealing death.

The one eyed man's hands were shaking violently and he stood there frozen. He couldn't believe anyone was that fast, that good a shot. He hadn't even gotten a shot off.

"Drop the gun and I'll let you live." Simon said matter of factly. There was a steely edge in his voice.

The one eyed man dropped his pistol and lifted both hands up as if to surrender. Then Simon aimed his pistol and shot the one eyed man in the groin twice. He fell to the ground in a heap, with blood pouring out of the open wounds in his pants.

"I said I'd let you live, never promised you'd live well" said Simon with a menacing laugh.

----------

The Serenity had taken off into orbit as Zoe recounted the story to Wash. On the ride back to the ship on the Mule, Simon had calmly reloaded his guns as Jayne watched him in a mixture of shock and awe. Mal had simply said 'Good job' and said nothing else.

Mal walked into the bridge as Book motioned him over.

"You ok?"

"I think so," Mal answered, "Other than having the doctor flip out and kill a roomful of men."

"Always the quiet ones, Sir," Zoe said with a chuckle.

"He tested that serum on himself, the one he wanted to use on River. He had to be sure it was safe. I.. uh.. think its got some side effects he didn't consider"

"Shepard, thats an understatement" Mal said, " How long before hes back to the usual meek doctor we've come to know and be annoyed by?"

"He said four hours, at least thats what he said before he took it. Then he suddenly got some guns and ran out on the Mule after you. After hearing what happened, it might have been divine intervention"

"Not sure what it was, Shepard," Mal said, " but the boy saved our asses back there. If he wants to test out his dark side for a while, no arguments here."

Wash slid under the panel of the control deck as a small spray of sparks flew out around him.

"Damn converter, this thing is going bad for sure. Where's Kaylee?"

------

Simon slid down the ladder to Kaylee's bunk. She turned around in surprise as the doctor closed in the hatch behind him.

"Simon?"

He walked up to her and stood right in her face, looking her eye to eye as he put his hands gently on her shoulders.

"What? I..."

Then Simon put a single finger over her lips.

"I know you like me. I like you. We both know and we both do nothing about it. You think you aren't good enough, you don't come from money or class or have an education. Doesn't matter. Not saying it doesn't matter in the universe because it does. I'm saying it doesn't matter to me. Nothing matters to me about me and you except me and you"

Kaylee stood there shocked. There was dirt and grease on his face. He was wearing a pair of guns and a ratty dirty T shirt. He walked and gestured with an air of confidence, as if someone else had taken over his body.

"Simon, what brought all this on..."

Then he stopped her mouth with a kiss. It was long and self assured.

"Remember when you said I always go stiff on you?" he asked as he led her hands down lower and lower.

"Simon..." she said breathlessly as she gripped.

"Yeah well, you were right, I am going all stiff on you."

Then he unzipped her flightsuit.

--------

The dinner table in the galley was extremely quiet. Everyone was looking at Simon strangely. He had started eating as soon as he sat down, he didn't want for Shepard to say grace and he didn't pull out Kaylee's seat for her. As for Kaylee, it didn't matter, she was sitting next to him with her hair tousled up and her face bright red.

"Simon?" River said in a puzzled way.

"All in your mind, kid. Wish I had said that earlier" Simon said nonchalantly as he shoved some more food down his face.

"Simon, I think maybe you should lie down.." Inara said gently.

"You mean like we did back on Osiris? I knew we were supposed to never talk about it. But my dad wanted to be sure for me, for the first time. He said you were the most expensive in the galaxy"

Inara's face turned bright red as Kaylee's face deflated. Mal's expression rocked back as if he had been hit by a train.

"You're kidding right!" Kaylee almost yelled.

"Fraid not, sweetcheeks. Thats how men are, we do the vertical bop, then we lose the power of speech"

Kaylee ran tearfully from the table as Inara trailed her with an expression of guilt on her face.

"He's like Jayne lite, minus all aspects of the lite part" Wash said in utter shock.

"Yeah, like Jayne, except for the smell" Zoe added.

Jayne sniffed his armpit and gestured with his face that he did not in fact smell that bad.

Mal walked over to Simon and pushed away the doctor's plate. "Now look here Doc, there's something down right unsettling about all this..."

Then Simon keeled over as Shepard Book brained him over the head with a frying pan.

"I'm sorry my son, until that drug wears off, less damage is gonna come from that bump on your head than from that mouth of yours"

----------

Simon woke up a few hours later, his head groggy and felt a large bump on the side of his head. He was on the bed in the infirmary and covered with a blanket.

Inara was using a wet towel to dab on his forehead. The makeup around her eyes had run down along her cheeks from her tears.

"Kaylee knows" Inara said. " The whole crew knows now. That you were under the influence of drugs won't help too much I'm afraid."

"What?" Simon said. Having little to no memory of the last 8 hours.

"She knows you were my first job as a Companion. I guess it couldn't stay a secret forever. Secrets aren't meant to be kept."

"You told her everything?"

"Not everything. But enough."

"Oh" Simon said as he thought about how he was going to fix this with Kaylee.

Inara sighed as she put the towel down and walked out of the infimary.

" Clean yourself up Simon. Then go fix the messes you've made today. Mend that poor girl's broken heart. And by the way, you look ridiculous in one of Jayne's T shirts."

Simon Tam got up and pulled off the T shirt, trying to remember what he had done and said, thinking about how he wanted to crawl under a rock.

He walked over to Kaylee's bunk and knocked gently. There was no answer. So he pushed the hatch open and climbed down the ladder. There she was in her bed with her back to him. Her shoulders heaved gently from her tears. He sat on her bed and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Go away" she said tearfully.

In silence and back to his routine insecure ways, Simon got up and left. Time would heal all wounds, his mother used to say. Simon was smart enough to know those words weren't always true.

To Be Continued...