The Teaser Pony

By Mikelesq

Concept: The crew of Serenity provides passage for horse with an unusual talent, and a woman from Simon’s past.

Rating: R

Feedback: Please. E-mail Mikelesq@aol.com

Spoilers: For all episodes, including the three unaired episodes. Do NOT read if you’re remaining spoiler free until the DVDs. Takes place approximately three weeks after “Objects in Space,” and presumes that “OiS” was the final episode chronologically.

Legal disclaimers: "Firefly” characters and situations are owned by Joss Whedon and the producers of the show. The story is entirely fiction. Distribute if you like.

Part IV

Inara tied the belt around her robe, mentally preparing for the awkward moment she knew was approaching. On the other side of the shuttle, Hiram Crenshaw fastened the buckle of his boot, then stood.

“Mr. Crenshaw,” Inara said. “I wish to apologize for my...mistake.”

“Please,” Crenshaw replied, pulling on his leather work gloves. “The less said the better.”

“There will of course be no charge,” Inara said.

Crenshaw reached into the front pocket of his pants, and pulled out a wad of cash. He peeled off two bills and dropped them on the table.

“Half,” he said, shoving the rest of his money back into his pocket. “That seems fair, all things considered.”

“Before you leave,” Inara said, “Guild rules require that I inform you of your rights. You may report any Companion who, in your opinion, has failed to provide a good faith performance of her duties. I can provide you with the appropriate contacts. If you choose to pursue a report, your complaints will be reviewed by a board of no less than three....”

“Please,” Crenshaw interrupted. “I don’t want to report anything. As I said, the less said the better.”

“Very well,” Inara said.

“Good day, Inara,” Crenshaw mumbled, turning and quickly exiting the shuttle door. Inara waited until she heard the sound of his horse’s hoofs gallop away.

Inara walked to the couch, sat down, and dropped her head into her hands. It had been foolish. A rookie mistake. Fortunately, it appeared that no one would hear of it. If word found its way back to the Guild, her career would for all intents and purposes be over.

Inara grabbed the two bills from the table. Half of her wage. For half a day’s work. The only work she’d had in weeks, and it was half pay for a half day. She would have insisted on accepting no money, but practical concerns overcame pride. A month’s rent on the shuttle would be due soon, and money had become scarce.

For a moment, Inara thought that Mal ought to reduce the rent, since this latest impediment to her income was in part his fault. She then corrected herself. It was entirely her fault. Her profession required constant concentration. It did not matter that the client was below her usual standard. It did not matter that he had possessed more stamina than she had suspected. She was a Companion. Her responsibilities were not subject to extenuating circumstances.

Besides, even if she could permit herself to blame Mal, what could she say?

‘Mal, you cost me money, because while I was in bed with a client...I cried your name.’

Inara wadded the money in her clenched fist then hurled it across the shuttle.

----------------------

Simon leaned against the wall of the room as Jayne stood at the door, his arms folded across his chest. River sat on the bed, turning a pocket watch absently in her hands.

Simon clenched his jaw, forcing himself not to pace. Through the walls of the room, he could hear the clang of instruments dropping on the metal tray.

“Extractor,” he heard Amelia’s voice say. “No, the small one. Hurry!”

Simon drew a slow, even breath. From what he’d heard, it sounded as though the shot had not damaged any of Wash’s vital organs. Still, the bullet would need to be removed. As an ER physician, Amelia was trained to perform such surgeries in an emergency.

Of course, Simon doubted that the fugitive status of a board certified surgeon would meet the medical guild’s definition of an ‘emergency.’

“Dammit!” Simon heard Amelia exclaim.

Simon’s eyes darted up, and he bolted toward the door. Jayne blocked his way, glaring into Simon’s eyes and shaking his head from side to side.

“Doctor Brakestone,” Simon heard Mal say. “I need to know whether you can handle this.”

“It’s nothing,” Amelia replied. “The bullet slipped the first time, but this time, I think...yes!”

A moment later Simon heard the slug clang as it dropped into the steel surgical pan.

“I got it,” Amelia said. “He should be fine. I’m closing.”

Simon let out a sigh of relief.

-----------------------------

“Serenity, this is Shuttle One,” Inara called into the radio. “Please respond.”

“Go ahead, Inara,” Mal radioed back.

“Mal, what’s happening?” Inara asked. “I tried to send a wave to tell you I was finished, but the comm indicated that you’re still in radio range.”

“We’re in orbit,” Mal replied. “We had a little problem.”

“Is everything alright?”

“There was a gunfight,” Mal said. “Wash took a round in the belly.”

“What!?”

“He’s fine,” Mal assured her. “Doctor Brakestone fixed him up. She’s staying on until we get to Atreus, just to keep an eye on him, then we’ll fly her back.”

“Why not just drop her off? Then Simon can take over.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t tell her that. She insisted that he needed to be watched for twenty-four hours, and I couldn’t think of a reason not to take her up on the offer.”

“Well, as long as Wash is taken care of, that’s what’s important.”

“Can’t argue,” Mal said. “In any event, we’ve been in orbit for the past six hours while she patched him up, so we’ll be a little behind schedule on the way back. If your client’s inclined to part with another month’s profit....”

“No,” Inara interrupted. “I mean, I’ll meet you in orbit. My client...had an emergency.”

“Do you have enough fuel to brake atmo?”

“Barely,” Inara replied. “But the air jets will be enough to get me docked once I get close.”

“Good enough,” Mal said. “I’m transmitting our flight path to your shuttle...now.”

“Got it,” Inara replied. “I’ll be there in an hour.” ---------------------

“This land is...strange,” Wash slurred, as he bounced the plastic brontosaurus on his stomach. “The ground is...soft, yet surprisingly well-shaped, and, dare I say, virile.”

Wash tilted the stegosaurus he held in his other hand, then said in a deep, gravelly voice:

“I say we conquer it! And we shall call it the Land of the Virile, Fleshy...Land...Area!”

“He’ll be fine,” Amelia told Zoe, clearing the surgical tools from the tray. “The pain medication must be making him loopy.”

“Not much,” Zoe said, resting a hand on Wash’s shoulder, and placing a gentle kiss on his forehead.

“The egg-laying ones mock our plans,” Wash grumbled in his stegosaurus voice. “But it is we who shall laugh in the end! In fact, I shall laugh now! Ha! Ha-ha!”

“Inara just docked,” Mal announced, entering the infirmary. “I’ve got a course set to Atreus. We should be there in about twelve hours. After we drop off the horse, we can be back here tomorrow.”

“Good,” Amelia replied. “Captain, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to get some rest. I didn’t sleep well last night, and after four hours of surgery, I’m a little fatigued.”

“Rest up, Doctor,” Mal said. “We’ll holler if we need you. Use Inara’s shuttle.”

As Amelia turned to leave, Zoe called:

“Doctor, thank you.”

“Yes,” Wash growled, extending the stegosaurus toward Amelia. “Thank you for saving this pudgy land mass we call Home!”

Amelia smiled, as Wash looked up and mouthed ‘thank you.’ She then turned and walked out.

Mal peered outside, and once he was satisfied that Amelia was out of earshot, he said:

“Zoe, give the doctor a half hour to get to sleep, then seal the shuttle bay doors.”

“Why, sir?” Zoe asked. “Simon knows to stay hidden.”

“That’s the thing,” Mal said. “He can’t stay hidden. I need him to check out that horse.”

“The horse?” Zoe replied.

“Right after Wash got shot, one of our visitors got all riled up on account of a bullet that got a little too close to Barney. They were after him specifically.”

“We weren’t even supposed to bring him here,” Wash said, struggling to keep his speech coherent. “How’d they know we’d have him?”

“A good question,” Mal said. “An even better question would be why he was worth all the trouble. We got a good piece of coin on the line, but a teaser pony ain’t worth trailing us all the way here, then putting together six hands for shooting work, plus who knows how many men riding in for the second wave. That kind of time and bloodshed ain’t worth the deal we have on the table.”

“I’ll tell Simon, Sir,” Zoe said. “Keep an eye on my husband?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Mal replied.

Zoe turned and exited the infirmary.

Mal walked over to the stool by the operating table and took a seat. He glanced at Wash, and Wash flashed a glassy-eyed smile. Mal pursed his lips, and his eyes wandered around the room. After a moment, Wash reached out his hand and said:

“Alright, you can be the stegosaurus. But I don’t want there to be any deception or underhanded endeavors!”

Mal took the plastic dinosaur from Wash, turned it absently in his hands, and muttered:

“There’d be a welcome change.”

------------------------------

“Hold him steady,” Simon instructed Jayne, as Mal, Zoe and Book watched from just outside the steel pen.

“I got ‘em,” Jayne replied, holding the horse’s head in both hands. Barney brayed, and Simon cast a cautious eye up at the airlock to Inara’s shuttle.

“No need to worry, Doctor,” Mal said. “That door keeps the air in, it’ll keep the sound in, too. Just focus on the horse.”

“I don’t see anything out of the ordinary,” Simon replied, running his hands along the horse’s coat. “The scars on his face are old, and too jagged to be a surgical incision. In any event, they’re too close to bone to provide access to a concealable cavity.”

“Could be somewhere else,” Zoe proposed.

“They’d have to shave him,” Simon said. “Of course, it’s possible that something was done to him quite awhile ago.”

“Maybe it’s more of that gut smuggling,” Jayne suggested.

“There’s not much of a market for horse organs,” Simon answered. “And very little of value that one could keep in a live animal’s body that wouldn’t cause an immediate rejection by the immune system.”

“There’s gotta be something,” Zoe said.

“I’ll check for an elevated white cell count,” Simon said, grabbing a hypodermic from the medical kit on the deck. “But, again, if there was anything in the horse, he should have reacted to it by now.”

“All the more reason to be concerned,” Book said.

In unison, Mal, Zoe and Jayne shot curious glances at the Shepherd.

“Clumsy smugglers leave tell-tale signs,” Book continued, as Simon drew blood from the horse. “When everything appears ordinary, that’s when you’re dealing with someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“Yeah,” Jayne grumbled. “It’s folks that got more smarts than they oughta that you got to watch out for. Right, ‘Shepherd’?”

“A fair summation,” Book replied dryly.

“Let’s see what we have,” Simon said, kneeling on the deck and placing a drop of the horse’s blood on the scanning dish of his portable microscope.

“Well?” Mal asked, as Simon peered into the small screen.

“The cell count is well within normal limits,” Simon said. “It’s hard to tell...wait a minute.”

“What is it?” Mal asked.

“Well, it could just be a dirty lens,” Simon answered. “But it looks remarkably similar to...I think I have dithymidine in my kit.”

Simon turned and rummaged through his bag.

“Die-whatsis?” Mal asked.

“It’s an enzyme,” Simon said, grabbing a vial from his bag, twisting off the cap, and drawing a small dose into the hypodermic that contained Barney’s blood.

“Got a theory?” Zoe asked.

“Perhaps,” Simon said, tapping a finger against the needle, then depositing a drop of the treated blood into a second compartment on the microscope.

“There’s a reaction,” Simon continued. “Let’s see what kind.”

Simon took a small bottle of clear liquid from his bag, unscrewed the cap, and injected a stream of Barney’s blood into the fluid.

“It’s not the most reliable test in the ‘verse,” Simon said. “But most simple chemicals have a reaction to the reagent that gives you some idea of what you’re dealing with.”

“It’s doing something,” Zoe noted. “Look.”

The clear fluid had taken on a hazy tint, which grew darker from moment to moment.

“I’d say in about ten minutes this will be completely black,” Simon said, squinting at the bottle.

“So, what does that mean?” Mal asked.

“Well,” Simon replied. “Either someone has gone to great lengths to smuggle a large volume of topical ointment, or this horse is full of trimethyline.”

“Trimeth?” Mal interjected.

“Drops,” Zoe muttered.

“Quite potent,” Book added.

“And highly addictive,” Simon said.

“Wait a minute,” Jayne said. “If Barney here is full of drops, how come he ain’t all crazy like?”

“The narcotic has been treated with a chemical bonding agent,” Simon said. “It’s difficult to explain. Jayne, do you remember when you caught a cold on Clymene, and I gave you those capsules?”

“The ones with the little colored sprinkles?” Jayne asked.

“Exactly,” Simon said. “Those ‘sprinkles’ have medicine inside of them. The colored coatings dissolve at different rates, gradually releasing the drug during the day, so you only have to take one capsule every twelve hours. That works fine, for medicine that can be taken orally. On the other hand, if a drug has to be injected, it’s absorbed into the system almost immediately. That can be a problem if the effects wear off quickly. A research group at the hospital on Osiris was experimenting with a chemical bonding agent at the molecular level. They had considerable success. There were diabetics in the test group who were able to go days without insulin.”

“What does that have to do with our horse?” Zoe asked.

“We took urine samples from the patients in the study,” Simon said. “We had to balance the chemicals to keep the bond from being too strong. Otherwise, it would pass through the patient’s system with no effect at all. In theory, one could deliberately treat a drug with a bonding agent so that the drug would never enter the blood. It would pass through the renal system, and if properly filtered, one could easily get at least a quart of concentrated trimeth from the urine.”

“A quart of pure trimeth,” Book said. “Diluted with saline, the street value would be at least fifty thousand credits.”

“Hang on,” Jayne said. “Are you sayin’ that Barney here...he pisses money?”

“He pisses drops, Jayne,” Zoe growled. “That ain’t what we signed up for. You start dealing in drops, you’re dealing with people who make Niska look like a kitten. All other kinds of work dry up if you start down that path. Not to mention the Alliance trouble. One whiff of dope, and the Feds go from buzzing ‘round our ears to crawling up our pi gu.”

“She’s right,” Mal said. “Even if I were inclined to taste bile in my mouth every time I saw some you yao yin zhe starin’ at me from a gutter, I got no mind to take on that kind of trouble.”

“And Marsh knows that,” Zoe observed.

“I suppose we were a test run,” Mal said. “If you can smuggle the goods right under the nose of the smuggler, you got a good system. No wonder he made the deal too sweet to pass on.”

“Wait,” Jayne said. “A thought just came to me.”

“Here we go,” Zoe sighed.

“Just hear me out,” Jayne growled. “Now, the doctor here knows all about this pissing horse thing on account of that hospital he worked at. His lady doctor friend, she worked at that same hospital. Now here she is on our ship. How ‘bout that?”

Zoe blinked.

“Sir,” Zoe said. “Never remind me I said this, but that actually makes sense.”

“See there,” Jayne said, smiling. “Maybe you should listen to me more often.”

“Wait a minute,” Simon said, rising to his feet. “There’s no possibility whatsoever that Mela would ever be involved in smuggling narcotics!”

“Just ‘cause you’re sweet on her don’t make her sweet,” Jayne shot back. “Fifty thousand makes all kinds do all sorts.”

“She wasn’t involved,” Book said.

“Now, Preacher,” Jayne said. “You may’ve made a few good guesses in the past, but that don’t mean you’re....”

“He’s right,” Mal said.

“Huh?” Jayne grunted.

“There’s no way that adds up,” Mal continued. “If she’s in on it, either she’s here to make sure we get to Atreus, or to make sure we don’t. If she wanted us on Atreus, she’d have booked passage straight there. If not, then she would never have taken us off the ground when the shooting started. Nah, Marsh is the man behind all this.”

“So what do we do, Sir?” Zoe asked.

“We head to Atreus, on schedule,” Mal replied. “I’ve got thirty platinum into this horse, and I aim to get it back, plus what we’re owed. I ain’t gonna let Johnny Marsh spread the word that Malcolm Reynolds is any man’s fool.”

“They’ll be ready,” Zoe warned. “Probably with more men than they had on Iocasta.”

Mal did not answer.

“If we’re finished here,” Simon mumbled, gathering his equipment, “I have a bunk to hide out in.”

Simon handed his case to Mal, hopped the fence, then took his case and stormed back to the medical bay.

“What’s he all cantankerous about?” Jayne asked.

“Well, you did accuse his fiance of being a drug smuggler,” Zoe replied.

“That ain’t it,” Mal said.

“Then, what, Sir?” Zoe asked.

“We all thought she might be in on it,” Mal said. “But we were sure she wasn’t before he was.”

--------------------------

Simon slid the door of the bedroom closed, then walked over to the bed and sat on the edge. River reclined against the pillow at the other end, still rummaging through the box of junk.

“Mr. Granger’s watch has stopped,” River observed, dangling the timepiece from its silver chain. “The hours and minutes and seconds expire without the creeping ticks and tocks. He wound the stem and stretched the springs, but the tension released itself, and now the days are not his.”

“That could be a problem,” Simon mumbled.

“Not really,” River replied. “He’s dead.”

“Oh, so all that about time, it was....”

“Melancholy symbolism,” River stated. “I thought it was obvious.”

“Sorry,” Simon sighed. “I’m a little off this evening.”

“You’re sad.”

“Sad,” Simon repeated. “I suppose that’s in there somewhere.”

“Ticks and tocks,” River said, dropping the watch into the box. “So many pass so quickly. But it’s not relevant. All is as it was. She is who she was. You are who you’ve always been. It’s not about counting. It’s about knowing. And knowing what to look for.”

River reached into the box and pulled out the silver mirror. She held it up to Simon so that he could see his reflection in the glass.

“Same face,” River said. “Same eyes. Same mouth. Don’t look for the changes. So much is the same.”

Simon’s eyes gazed at the small hand mirror. He reached out and gently took the silver disc from River’s grasp, then absently took the mirror and turned it in his hands.

“You have a feeling,” River said. “Whispers tell you secrets.”

Simon closed his eyes, drew a breath, then said:

“Get some sleep. I have to talk to the Captain.”

------------------------

“You sure this is what you want, Doctor?” Mal asked Simon, as they stood in the cargo hold. Jayne, Book, and Inara stood by the makeshift corral, and Kaylee held Barney’s reins tightly, as she drew slow, deliberate breaths.

“I’m sure,” Simon replied softly.

“Once done, there’s no undoing,” Mal said.

“It’s your ship, Captain,” Simon said. “Say the word, and I’ll go back to my room. But if you’re giving me the choice, I’ve made it.”

Mal drew a breath, then walked to the intercom. His voice boomed throughout the ship as he announced:

“Doctor Brakestone, we need you in the cargo bay.”

The horse recoiled, alarmed by the echo. Kaylee rested a hand on his mane, stroking him gently until he became still.

After a moment, Amelia emerged and ran down the stairs.

“What’s wrong?” She gasped. “Has Wash...?”

Amelia stopped as she saw Simon standing at the base of the stairway. Her eyes met his, and she slowly continued her descent.

“Mela,” Simon said. “I know this must be a shock.”

“Simon,” Mela replied, her face blank. “How did you get here?”

“I’ve been here all along,” Simon answered. “I’m, well, I suppose I’m the manure.”

“You’re...you’re alive,” Amelia sighed as she reached the deck.

“Well, if you call this living,” Simon replied. “I found River. I’ve been trying to...that is, she’s suffering from...well, that’s a long story. The point is, we’re still on the run. We’ve been on this ship since I left. No one can know where we are, which is why we usually stay hidden. I’d planned to stay below until we reached Iocasta, but...I know I don’t have any right to ask anything of you, and it’s probably selfish of me to put you in danger by....”

“Simon, shut up,” Mela exclaimed, as she ran to Simon, wrapped both arms around him and kissed him.

Simon gently rested his hands on her shoulders, then pulled her close and returned her kiss.

Neither noticed as Kaylee dropped the horse’s reins and scurried away.

END PART IV