Regan Tam switched off the recorded wave and sat back heavily. It had been a little over a day since Simon had mysteriously disappeared. Gabriel had been in a rage, demanding answers from the staff, sending out search parties and screening private investigators. All the while, Regan, tired and ill, had sat very still and waited for it all to die down.

And now this. She would go to him of course, he was her son, her first born child, and he was in trouble. She was a mother after all, his mother, and no amount of estrangement or doubt would ever take that title away from her. And no amount of overbearing husband either.

***

Wash had drifted off to sleep in the pilot’s chair again, working late into the night and forgetting to go to bed. He had been searching vainly for Inara’s shuttles’ transponder signal for the better part of the day, confused and frustrated that he couldn’t find it. It made no sense.

But the beeping from his console did. After dismissing the noise as the new roar from the dinosaur chasing him, Wash roused himself and brought his attention back to the real world. Foggily, he looked to the machines and registered the red light blinking steadily there. In an instant, he was alert and checking the signal, finding a solid trace. Smiling contentedly, he leaned over and signaled Mal. “Captain, I got ‘em.”

***

“I appreciate you coming, and coming alone,” Simon told his mother as he reached out a hand to help her into the shuttle. Kaylee and Inara were both there, sitting across the room on the sofa, while Simon guided his mother to the cortex screen across the way. Easing her into a chair, he knelt next to her and said, “I’m sorry I left so suddenly, but I had to go. I have to help River.”

Regan gazed into her son’s all-too-mature eyes and knew that whatever he suspected about the Academy, he was probably right. She and Gabriel had been wrong. Wrong about so many things but most of all wrong to ever, ever doubt their brilliant son – the doctor. He had made them so proud, every minute of every day. Somewhere along the way she and his father had lost sight of that – had lost sight of the son Simon had been and always would be. Had lost sight of the little boy who protected and loved his baby sister from the minute she was born.

Reaching out a gentle hand, she placed it on his cheek and leaned in to whisper, “I know, Simon. I understand.”

Simon had thought he’d be able to get through this without breaking down. He actually had thought there would be a lot of angry words and yelling. But he hadn’t expected his mother to look at him with such tenderness, with the love in her eyes that she had bestowed on him since he was a small boy. He hadn’t expected her to accept that he was right.

Hearing the words come from her released a good deal of Simon’s tension. His body sagged visibly as the great weight rose from his shoulders. Tears quickly forming, he looked away from her so she wouldn’t see him cry, but she knew, and without a word, she pulled him to her, wrapping her arms around him. Rocking him gently, she whispered in his hair as he sobbed out all the frustration and anger and fear he’d been carrying with him since River had gone away all those years ago. It was such a relief for him to know that finally, at least his mother could see River was in real danger and Simon had only been trying to protect her.

Finally bringing his emotions under control, Simon took a few deep breaths and pulled away from his mother. Her own cheeks shined in the dim light of the shuttle, betraying her emotions. It felt so good to hold her baby boy again, even though he had long ago stopped needing her. Wiping her cheeks, she cleared her throat and said, “Now, why did you ask me here?”

Simon cleared his own throat and waited until he was sure he could speak without his voice breaking. “I brought you here for this.” He held up the thin data stick and Regan studied it for a moment.

“What’s on it,” she asked, recognizing the piece of equipment.

“Let me show you,” he said, evading her question and sliding the software into Inara’s cortex screen. The screen blinked a few times as it read the files and Simon typed in the access code when prompted, pulling up the 3-D image of River’s brain.

“Do you know what this is,” he asked her.

Regan frowned at him, the hint of a smile on her lips. “Don’t you remember who helped you study once River had gone to bed?” Simon smiled at the memory and nodded once as Regan said, “It’s a brain scan. From some type of neural imager, I’d suppose.”

Nodding again, Simon hit a few buttons, causing the image to begin rotating, until the top of River’s brain was in full view, the right and left hemispheres clearly delineated by the separation down the middle. “This is a neural image of River’s brain. I took it about six months ago at a hospital on Ariel.” Simon blew right past the shocked look on his mom’s face knowing that was another discussion for another day.

“Do you see these points, here and here,” he asked her, noting some particularly bright yellow and green areas. “And these,” he questioned again pointing at half a dozen inch long gray lines along both sides of the brain. Regan leaned in to study the image closer noting that Simon had only pointed out about a third of the gray slivers in the image; they were everywhere.

Fear gripped her throat, strangling her next words. “What are those?”

“The gray slivers are cuts. River’s brain was cut into, repeatedly, while she was at the Academy.” Simon took his mother’s now trembling hand, and she turned to face him. A single tear was sliding down her cheek, her eyes filled with fear. “The yellow and green spots speak of damage, fairly severe damage if River’s behavior is any indication. A normal person’s brain scan should be a mixture of reds and oranges, those colors indicate a healthy brain.” Glancing back to the screen, Simon had to swallow hard to get the next words out. “River’s brain has deep pockets of scar tissue and a lot of these ‘cold’ areas. While River is still exceptionally brilliant, whatever they did to her is what’s caused her schizophrenia, delusions and her other violent tendencies in general.”

Simon stopped, unable to go on until he’d taken a deep breath. But Regan didn’t need him to continue. “And now she’s back there. With those people who did this to her.”

It was a whisper full of anger and hate and Simon could only guess who those feelings were directed at. Nodding slowly, he said, “Yes.”

Regan was trying to determine how and why this had all happened. River had been a bright, energetic child, with a tendency toward anything she attempted. She had been correcting Simon’s homework from the time she was three and within her first two years at school, was completing lessons flawlessly alongside children twice her age. It was these factors and a myriad of others that had led Gabriel and Regan to the decision to send her away.

River hadn’t wanted to go. Regan remembered the argument like it was yesterday. She had thrown quite a tantrum, pouting, stomping her foot, crying giant tears, but Gabriel and Regan held firm, saying that a new school would help challenge her so she wouldn’t be bored. It would be a place where she could meet other children like her.

But River had not been convinced. She had eventually acquiesced, whether because she had changed her mind or because she knew fighting was useless they were never able to determine. Regan had a sinking suspicion that her daughter had just assigned herself to her fate. A fate, it turned out, worse than death.

“Why are you showing me this,” she asked her son, unable to raise her eyes to look at him. He had known, he had always known, from the minute they had received that first misspelled letter. And she and his father had refused to believe him. It riddled her with shame.

“Because, I need you to be able to explain it to dad,” Simon told her firmly, shutting down the screen and handing her the data stick.

Regan looked at him, incredulous and even the two other women in the room inhaled quickly, apparently not privy to this part of Simon’s plan. Regan took the data stick with a shaky hand and said, “Simon, there is no reason your father will listen to me.”

“Yes, there is,” Simon said, rising and reaching out a hand to help her up. “He’ll listen because he’s known you and loved you longer than anyone else in this entire ‘verse. I’m pretty much convinced you’re the only person who might be able to persuade him.”

Again, the look of strength and love in Simon’s eyes made Regan’s knees weak. When had her son grown into this man before her? And why had she not been there to see it?

“He’ll think it’s fake. That you doctored the images somehow.” Regan knew this wasn’t going to be easy.

So did Simon. “I know. Tell dad to run it through the security scans he has access to from work. He’ll be able to read the data signatures and know it hasn’t been tampered with.” Closing his hand around hers, Simon forced his mother to look at him. “Please, mom. I need you to do this. If we’re going to get River out of that place, I’m going to need your help.”

“Why,” Regan asked him. “You did it before …”

“I did, but I had access to a lot of money and the luxury of ignorance.” Simon paused and looked to the floor. “Now that I know what they’re doing to her in there, I won’t be able to sleep until she’s back with me, safe and sound.”

Regan nodded once and pushed her shoulders back, breathing in deep. Closing her eyes, when she opened them again, they were clear and focused. Again bringing her son into her arms, she whispered, “I’ll contact you as soon as he knows. We’ll figure out what to do next.”

Simon nodded and kissed his mother on the cheek, pulling out of her embrace. “Thank you.”

She smiled at him again, nodded to the two women across the room and then exited the shuttle.

As soon as the door closed behind her, Simon sank slowly onto the chair in front of the console, letting his again throbbing head fall into his hands. Within seconds, he felt gentle and nimble fingers rubbing his temples, helping to ease the headache there. Looking up, he saw Kaylee’s smiling, but concerned eyes looking back at him. “Thank you,” he told her, sighing heavily as his eyelids again closed against the rhythmic massage.

“No thanks necessary,” she whispered, reaching up to kiss him lightly on the forehead. After a few more moments, she shifted her arm around his waist and brought him to a standing position. “Come on, you still need to rest. That head of yours maybe thick, but it ain’t indestructible.”

Simon chuckled at her comment, too weary to put up a fight. Truth was, as much as River’s situation had him worried, his bruised skull had other ideas about sleeping. He had slowly regained some strength, but his movements were still slow and the wound at the base of his neck hurt something fierce. As a doctor, he knew he should be resting. As a brother, he knew he shouldn’t.

“All right, I’ll lie down, but I’m not sleeping,” he told her, having to stifle a yawn mid-protest.

“Uh-huh,” Kaylee said snidely, helping him sit and get himself into a comfortable position. “And I’m the queen of all Londinium.”

Simon laughed out loud at that, and the joyful noise brought a big smile to Kaylee’s face. She sat next to him on the bed, holding his hand. “Now that would be lovely – Queen Kaylee. You’d make a great queen,” he told her groggily as he started to drift off.

Kaylee gazed upon him as his eyes finally closed and his breathing became even. Satisfied that he was asleep, she leaned down to gently brush her lips against his forehead. “Only with you as my king,” she whispered, and then she settled back to watch over him as he slept.

***

Inara had left the two new lovebirds alone once Regan had gone. The companion had never been so glad to see a woman leave her shuttle in all her life. While Inara knew that they would need the help of both Tams to get River released, she didn’t like the idea of trusting Regan with the task of convincing Gabriel. While he was a very charming man and did indeed care for his family, he was more convinced that he was right. And he was in love with that conviction.

A warning light flashed on the console and Inara hit the switch to mute the noise it would make, not wanting to interrupt Simon or Kaylee. Furrowing her brow and wondering what could possibly have set off the device Inara ran through some of her screens and then sighed heavily as she realized what had happened.

Leaning back dejectedly in her chair, she muttered, “Go seh.”

***

“What in the nine levels of hell did you think you were doing takin’ my shuttle and my mechanic out for a joy ride?”

Inara had seen Mal mad before, plenty of times, since it was often his normal state-of-being when in her presence. But she had never seen him so angry. Inara was a student of emotions, both spoken and silent, so her view of Mal in any state was always a little more detailed than anyone else’s. But what she was reading from him now was pure anger, mixed with annoyance and maybe the slightest bit of fear.

Deciding now would not be the time to call him on any of that, Inara cast her eyes to the floor and waited for his tirade to finish. As soon as she had seen Serenity on the display, she had hurried out of the shuttle and intercepted Mal on the landing platform. Simon was drained from the meeting with his mother and needed the sleep Kaylee demanded of him. For her part, Kaylee was just as drained, worrying about Simon and the still absent River pushing her close to exhaustion. Inara knew they both deserved some peace and she was not about to let Mal and his tempest of a mood take that from them.

“I mean, I expect you to disobey me when we’re on my boat, it’s almost gotten to be cute,” Mal was continuing, pacing a path in front of her. He was over gesticulating with his hands, barely able to focus on one point while he talked and completely unable to stand still. Inara filed this all away in her study of the captain as he said, “But when I gave you an order involving keeping Kaylee safe, I thought you’d heed it.”

He stopped, breathing heavily, his angry eyes still focused on her. Feeling the heat on her head that the gaze brought, Inara finally ventured a look at his face. She had been right the first time. Mal was angry, there was no doubt, but that other emotion she thought she’d seen before, fear, was real and apparent in the eyes that looked back at her.

“Mal, I’m sorry, I am,” she assured him as he snorted derisively and ran a hand through his mop of hair. “I didn’t mean to defy you so – well, that’s not fair,” she said, reconsidering the statement. Telling the man an outright lie at this point would be a gesture in stupidity. “I did mean to defy you, but not for the reasons you think.” She was trying to make him see, trying to make him understand that she could be useful to him and his crew. She was trying to convey that she was strong and capable of fighting at his side.

Taking a cautious step forward, Inara waited for Mal to back away and give her a burning stare. But the look never came and he stayed where he was, still seething, but at least not trying to avoid her. Coming within a hands-breadth of him, she continued in a low tone, “Kaylee was beside herself over Simon and I couldn’t sit by and do nothing. You know me better that, Mal.”

She kept her eyes locked on his downcast face and waited for him to meet her gaze. She knew he would; the man could never back down from a challenge. The fear she had glimpsed before in those chocolate eyes was clearly evident now, the red fire of anger fading to the background. Placing a gentle hand on his arm, she continued, “I knew I could get to Simon and River in that house and without having to threaten anyone, kill anyone or beat anyone senseless. And it worked. Kaylee’s fine and we have Simon back.”

She waited, wondering what was going on in that head of his. Mal was a man of few words – well, few right words. He often went about on his ship blustering about some job or complaining about some member of his crew, but he was also a man of deep convictions and deeper feelings. That was why Inara had stayed so long. She had never told him that of course, but it was the truth. She had stayed because she hoped, with an intensity she thought long out of her reach, that he might one day share those feelings with her. But his ability to speak of such things was limited and Inara was losing hope that she would be the one he would ever confide in.

Placing his hand over hers, Mal studied her face intently for another minute, before pulling Inara into an embrace. The companion was more than startled, but she didn’t fight him. Wrapping her arms around him, Mal held her back tightly, and whispered in her hair, “You worried me, ‘Nara. I thought something had happened to you.”

“We’re fine, Mal,” she said against his cheek. “I’m fine.”

They stayed locked in the embrace for a few moments and when Mal pulled away Inara did not miss him wiping his face quickly. Could Malcolm Reynolds really have been crying over a lowly whore? It was almost too much for Inara to process in one night.

Clearing his throat, he said, “Where is the good doctor and lil’ Kaylee?”

Motioning her head in the direction of the shuttle, she answered, “Simon was sleeping last time I checked. He’s suffered a pretty bad concussion. Kaylee was watching him sleep when I came out to meet you.”

A raise of the eyebrows brought a smile to Inara’s lips. “I think the dance has finally ended,” she told him, lacing her arm through his and directing him back towards the shuttle. “It seems Kaylee and the young doctor have finally figured out a way to have a relationship.”

Mal looked at the companion for a second longer before muttering a whole slew of Mandarin curse words that only brought a giggle to Inara’s lips.

***

Gabriel watched the security feed from a few nights ago, over and over again. He had already played back the images from the night that River was taken ten times, but he would play them ten more until he figured out why. Why his son had been intent on stealing his daughter from her own home?

Gabriel saw Simon enter his sister’s room and saw the tenderness with which he comforted the girl. That was not a surprise to Gabriel. Simon and River had always possessed a connection with one another that had baffled him. Growing up an only child, Gabriel did not understand the importance of siblings. Nor of family in general; his parents had been ambassadors for the Parliament long before the war and their work had taken them to every terra-formed planet in the ‘verse; which meant they left Gabriel in the hands of very capable nannies. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d ever celebrated a birthday as a child with his parents; could count on two hands the number of times he’d celebrated any other holiday with them as well. This did not sadden him as it was merely fact.

Fast forwarding the image, he again stopped it to watch the children’s interaction right before the guards entered. Their heads were bent towards each other and they spoke too low for the surveillance equipment to hear. But whatever River had said had upset Simon greatly and Gabriel watched his son reach for her a second before the guards came bursting into the room. He saw Simon futilely attempt to take on all ten, heavily-armed men before being knocked unconscious.

And he saw River, staring at Simon’s limp form with a horror in her eyes that unsettled him. And with an equally disturbing clarity, Gabriel saw the defeat in her eyes as she let the guards take her away.

“What are you doing?”

His wife’s voice startled him. Swiveling in his chair, Gabriel turned to see Regan’s frail form framed in the doorway to his office. Flipping off the screen, Gabriel answered, “Nothing, dear. Where have you been?”

As she entered the room, Gabriel noticed there was something different about her. Her gait was more assured than it had been in months, her eyes again held some of the fire he’d first fallen in love with. She seemed, healthier, somehow.

“Dear, are you feeling all right,” he asked, leaning forward to get a better look at her, as she came and sat in front of his desk.

The fire he had noticed moments before turned to an icy cold as she admonished him, “Don’t ‘dear’ me.”

Taken aback at the sneer in her voice, he raised an eyebrow and said, “Did I do something to upset you?”

Regan thought about laying into him, right there; considered taking him to task for even daring to ask such an idiotic question. “Upset her,” it was almost laughable for him to use such feeble words for so momentous a grievance.

“No, Gabriel, you haven’t upset me,” she told him, doing her best to keep her tone even. “You’ve outraged me.”

She slammed the slim data rod onto the desk between them and heard the ring it made in the room. Gabriel jumped slightly from the noise and looked from the stick to his wife and back again. Finally, unable to guess at its contents he asked, “Should I know what’s on that?”

“No,” Regan told him, gritting her teeth to keep in her anger. “No, I don’t suppose you should. But you should be ashamed for having had a hand in what caused it. As I am.”

Gabriel was more than curious now. His wife had not been this fired up over anything since before the illness, really since before River had been sent to school. The cancer had been to blame for most of her mood changes. She had lost her appetite and the chemo therapy had been unrelenting for the first eight months of her diagnosis. Gabriel had always believed himself to be a good man and good husband. But watching his wife wither away had tested that theory and he found that he failed. He still loved Regan, yes, but not in the way he had when he’d agreed to be her husband. He had felt shame for that for a while and now, he just felt a deep ache in his heart where the memories of their life together still resided.

“Regan, sweetheart, I really don’t understand. What’s upset you?” He was concerned Regan could see that, by the glint in his eyes. But the patronizing tone was too much for her to bear at the moment.

“I want you to listen to me, very closely,” she said, her voice gaining some of the edge she’d been fighting to hold back. “I went to see Simon tonight.”

His expression immediately changed from one of concern to one of nothingness. He did not like to speak of their wayward son, especially since he’d run away from them, again. He didn’t like to think that Simon, his boy, had grown into a man with paranoid delusions who was content to drag his sister down in the process. “Why would you do that when you know whatever he says will be a lie?”

“How can you say that,” Regan asked him, incredulous. He was not the man she had married. “Gabriel how? Think. Think about Simon, the boy we raised. The bright boy who wanted nothing more than to please us. The boy who spent hours in his room every night studying so he could become the renowned surgeon you wished him to be.” There was a pleading in Regan’s eyes that was almost too much for Gabriel to take. She had always been able to convince him of anything with those eyes.

“That boy doesn’t exist anymore,” he answered, in his own measured tone, hoping his emotions would not betray him. “As soon as Simon insisted on ‘rescuing’ his sister, that boy died.”

Regan inhaled sharply at such a cold statement. She knew the night everything had changed; when Simon had been arrested and Gabriel had been forced to bail him out of jail. It wasn’t so much that Simon had been taken into custody – he was a young man and sometimes young men did foolish things – it was the fact that the Tams had been publicly exposed as being less than perfect. The wave had come across while they’d been at dinner and Regan would never forget the blush that had crept across Gabriel’s cheeks as he’d stammered through a hasty retreat.

What she had always tried to tell him was that no one in that room cared that Simon had been found in a black-out zone. No one cared that Gabriel had been called away. No one cared because everyone there had dirty secrets they didn’t want aired in public either, so out of courtesy, when something unseemly was exposed, they gracefully turned the other cheek. She had never been successful in impressing this little fact upon her husband.

“Gabriel, I know you don’t believe me, but Simon did not do what he did to shame us or destroy our family. He did it for River, for our little girl, who he loves more than anything in all the worlds.” She was pleading now, outright, but Regan didn’t know what else to do. She could see a slight crack in her husband’s stony exterior and she would exploit for all it was worth.

“River,” Gabriel murmured the name, an image of his daughter at the age of three dancing in a children’s production of Swan Lake. She had been the best dancer on stage and the youngest.

“Yes, River. Our daughter who we sent to that –" Regan broke off, a sob rising in her throat as she pictured the images Simon had shown her. Regan was not necessarily as smart as her genius children, but she was educated and she had learned quite a bit from her son before he’d gone away. She knew the pain and torture he spoke of would be horrific and it paralyzed her to think of River suffering through that – then and now.

“Gabriel, I need to show you something.” Rising abruptly, Regan took the data stick from the desk and circled around to have access to Gabriel’s data screen. Calling up the images in the same way Simon had, Regan waited until Gabriel had had a few moments to take in the brain imagery before him. She stood, just behind his chair, waiting for him to say something.

“What is this,” he asked quietly, leaning forward.

“It’s a brain scan,” Regan explained. Taking a deep breath, she knew this wouldn’t get any easier.

“Yes, but of who’s brain,” he asked impatiently, turning to glance at her.

Kneeling down beside the chair, she took Gabriel’s hands in hers and stared up into his eyes. It was the closest the two of them had been in quite some time and Gabriel liked the intimacy in hinted at. Studying his face intently for a few minutes more, Regan asked him, “Do you trust me?”

Gabriel blinked rapidly, considering the implications of such a question, and the answer. She had never asked him that before. Not in all the years they had been married had Regan ever asked him if he trusted her. She had asked if he loved her, cared for her, believed in her, but not trust. It had always seemed to be an unspoken given in their relationship. Gabriel realized in that moment how far they’d slipped away from each other, if Regan felt she needed to ask.

The truth was his trust, his faith, had been shaken in a great many people throughout his life, least of which was Simon. But to not trust his wife, that seemed absurd.

“Of course,” he told her, matching her hushed tone.

Squeezing his hands, she continued, “I need you to remember that as you hear what I’m about to say.” Turning back to the screen, she stayed beside him and reached out a hand to point out the yellows and greens and the gray lines that Simon had shown her. “These areas, here and here, speak of damage, a lot of it.”