When Simon and Book came rushing into the cargo hold, it seemed like they were the last to arrive. Book held him back for a second while he checked to see if it was safe. Simon had no patience for it—his sister had been headed this way. “Were those gunshots?” Simon called as he wrestled his way past the shepherd. “Relax, Doc,” he heard the captain say before he saw him. “We’re all fine.” Simon finally found him helping Jayne inside along with Zoë. “No we’re not!” the mercenary complained as loudly as possible. “Doc! Patch me up! Got shot in my gorram leg!” But Simon was still preoccupied with finding his sister. He looked at the walkways up the stairs. He found only Inara there, watching the three below with her distaste for their often violent solutions written clearly on her face. While Simon’s eyes were still on her, though, the expression on her face turned suddenly to one of alarm. Fearing the worst, Simon turned to see what she was looking at—and found Kaylee stumbling into the ship. At first glance, the girl seemed unharmed, but she was obviously very shaken. Like Inara, Simon had the urge to immediately storm down the stairs to comfort her. Unlike Inara, though, Simon didn’t. Even with Inara’s customary grace of movement, the rush with which she came down the stairs caused quite a noise, and made Simon look around again. That’s where, with a sigh of relief, he finally found his sister, standing on the landing halfway up the stairs. She was perfectly all right, from the looks of it—she was even smiling. Again Simon had the urge to run down, and again he suppressed it. River had been sensitive about his constant presence lately. That morning, as he’d been helping her dress for the cold, she’d even called him ‘clingy.’ He was trying to keep his distance as much as he could make himself. Fortunately, though he hadn’t yet officially lifted the restrictions he’d put on River’s movements, the captain was letting it slide. Freed from his concern for his little sister for the moment, Simon looked again at Kaylee, but Inara was with her already. He’d gone two steps in their direction before he noticed and stopped himself. “*Mei-mei*, are you all right?” she asked as she put her arm around Kaylee’s shoulder. Kaylee finally shook herself out of her state of shock. “Whu? Oh! Oh, I’m fine, I’m fine. I was just…” “Did the boys scare you again?” Inara joked, and Kaylee responded with a faint smile. Simon let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding when he saw that reassuring curve in her lips, the normal sparkle returning to her eyes. The captain sounded a bit relieved at that as well, even as he took exaggerated offense. “Hey! I resent that! Zoë was every bit as scary as Jayne and I were.” Foregoing her usual verbal sparring with the captain, Inara led Kaylee away. She was probably taking her to her shuttle to calm down. Yes. Good idea. He should have… Simon shook his head. “Right then,” the captain said, watching Inara take his mechanic away. “Zoë, help Jayne to the infirmary, then come give me a hand with the supplies. Doc, you get your fancy butt up there too and make it so that I don’t have to listen to Jayne whine anymore. And—” “Oh,” Kaylee said, pausing as she and Inara went up the stairs. She was looking at something lying on one of the steps, but Simon couldn’t tell what it was. “Here’s the press-coupler boltgun. And it’s turned off…” She looked up at where River was standing—the captain did too. Then the pair turned to each other, and shared a look that seemed very significant somehow. The captain shrugged brusquely and walked away. “Well? Get moving. And someone check and see if Wash is awake! We’re leaving this rock.” Simon followed Zoë and Jayne to the infirmary, and proceeded to stitch Jayne back together mechanically. It was straightforward enough work, fortunately, because his mind was somewhere else entirely. Jayne barely waited for Zoë to walk back out the door before letting out a string of curses, threats and quite negative judgments of Simon’s skill as a surgeon, but Simon had long since accepted that as Jayne’s method of coping with the pain. He decided that Jayne could stumble his own way back to his bunk—or not, knowing Jayne, even though rest was strongly recommended after the painkillers he’d had. Simon knew nothing he could say would convince Jayne. And besides, he wanted to go talk to Kaylee. There were things he had to say. And he wanted to make sure that she was all right, of course, that had been foremost on his mind the whole way through stitching up Jayne. But that only stressed the need to say the things he had to say to her. She would probably still be in Inara’s shuttle. Good. Inara wouldn’t mind giving him the chance to talk to Kaylee in private. Inara was frustratingly insightful. Yes, he knew what he was going to do. He just needed something to drink first. His mouth was suddenly quite dry. There would be something in the kitchen. “Hey, Doc,” Wash greeted him, cheerfully chewing on his tasteless protein cubes. “Wash. Did I hear that we’re finally getting off-world?” Of course whoever had finished off the coffee had forgotten to make a new pot. Simon poured new water into the coffee machine. “Yeah. Long overdue if you ask me.” Like River’s, Wash’s health had taken an adverse reaction to the climate they were staying in, and the pilot was easily worst off. Since the day after he’d set Serenity down on that rock, his cold had so exhausted him that Wash had barely been out of bed except for meals. “Captain wanted to break atmo say, oh, five minutes ago. But I’ve been asleep for the past twelve hours straight, so I said, Mal, if I don’t get some food into that vacuum in my stomach first, it might just suck up the entire ship.” “You said that to the captain?” The coffee machine dripped ever so slowly. “Well, I told Zoë to tell him… All right, I asked her to ask to captain to give me a few minutes to wake up. Still: food! I’m happy.” “You sound like you’re feeling better,” Simon said. His deeply ingrained instincts as a doctor couldn’t help but pick up Wash’s symptoms and measure them to those seen earlier. “Don’t know about better—I’m definitely well-rested, though. I’ll have us off this moon in a jiffy.” “Good to hear,” Simon said as he poured himself the first cup of fresh coffee. He took it with him on the way out. “If there’s—oh!” He turned back to Wash. “Do you need any more medication?” Wash swallowed a mouthful of protein. “Would be nice. I’m running kinda low. Hang on, I’m almost done here, I’ll walk you back to the infirmary.” Simon nodded. He might as well finish his coffee first anyway. A few minutes later, as Simon and Wash walked into the infirmary, Simon wondered if Kaylee was still with Inara now. She might be in the engine room, covered with engine grease, prepping the ship for launch. That was good. Always put her in a good mood. Well, it wasn’t a big ship. She couldn’t be that hard to find. The captain popped his head in just as Simon was handing Wash his pills. He said, “Wash, get your butt in the pilot’s seat, or I swear I’ll let Jayne fly.” “Not a bad idea, Mal. We could make a killing selling tickets. Or, well, he could just make a killing.” Wash smirked at Simon, but the doctor noticed that he did make haste towards the bridge. The captain lingered, though. “Doc, when you’ve got a few minutes, we’ve got the medical supplies you asked for in with the foodstuff we stocked yesterday. Better put it away before someone uses tralalathine or panablahblah to season a meal.” “You *got* those? Why didn’t you *tell* me?” The captain gave him a look. “I just did, didn’t I? Just put it away.” Simon sighed deeply. “That man…” But unfortunately, he *was* right. Some of the substances he’d asked for were extremely dangerous if used improperly—mostly stuff he hoped he could use to help River. He didn’t feel comfortable leaving it lying about, let along among the kitchen supplies. And despite her promise, which he fully believed she intended to keep as long as she remembered it, Simon really wanted to check and make certain that River was safely on board before the ship went anywhere. He *did* still intend to speak to Kaylee—but there was plenty of time in the day, particularly when they were out in the black. Of course, Simon didn’t discover that the supply boxes were three quarters filled with padding until he’d carried three of them up to the infirmary, and he started to wonder just how much the captain had gotten him. He supposed, here on the border planets, where there were few actual, fully trained physicians, the suppliers could claim that the padding was necessary, and add its worth in gold to the selling price. Serenity’s corridors were suspiciously empty of anyone who could help him carry the boxes, too. When he was just finishing up—having emptied the last box and easily carrying the meager bottles that came out of it in his arms—Wash’s voice came over the intercom. “Friends, family and other assorted crew—everybody better hold onto something. We’re lifting off in five seconds.” The ship shuddered as it lurched into the air, a bit more roughly than Simon was used to from their normally smooth pilot. “River!” he realized with a start. Had anyone made sure she was on board? He all but ran the last few steps to the infirmary, and quickly dumped his load into an empty drawer. On his way out, he almost ran straight into Kaylee, who came running past. Simon smiled automatically, before he focused again. “Kaylee! Have you seen—” “No time! Sorry!” she called without stopping. “Ice crawled up the exhaust vents. Gotta run!” Simon blinked, and she’d vanished beyond the corner. Well. Kaylee seemed pretty busy. Maybe he’d better not disturb her for a while. “That’s all wrong, you silly,” a voice came from behind him. He whirled around in surprise. “River? Where did…” He looked around. “Where did you come from?” She didn’t answer, but cocked her head and looked at him so intently that it was as if she was afraid she’d never see him again. Suddenly, she looked as sad as that, too. “*Mei-mei*? Are you all right?” She flung her arms around him and crushed him in a hug so tightly Simon’d have expected it to come from a man Jayne’s size. After a moment, he hugged his sister back. “I love you. I love you a lot,” she mumbled into his shoulder. “Of course you do,” Simon replied. “And I love you. More than anything.” Slowly, River let go of him, and she smiled. She still looked just as sad, though. Even more so, with that brave but false smile curving her mouth. He wished he knew what was wrong. He wished he could fix it. “I know you do, *ziong-di*. I know you do.” She turned and walked away quickly, resolutely. Simon shook his head, wishing he had a clue. Some days he thought—no, he *knew*—that he was really smart, but others... Just as Simon was about to step back into the infirmary to put away the new supplies, River paused. “Oh,” she said, “go ahead and tell her already, you big doofus. She *likes* you anyway.” Yuuup. It was definitely one of the latter kind of day.

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