Tommy struggled to hold River as she tried to break out of their room and get down to the fight. No easy task by anyone’s standards, and he was succeeding, marginally, only because she didn’t want to hurt him. So, he barred the door against her, all the time talking to her in a rapidly-breaking voice. “River, xin gan, if you haven’t noticed, your pregnant! And it can’t be no good for the baby if ya go out and go fightin’. Simon can handle it-“ “SIMON!!!!!” *** He didn’t have his medicine bag. Go-se! Without his bag of tricks, he would have to use whatever the house had. Joy, on many levels. He turned to his Mother-in-law and wife, who were gazing in horrified fascination of James. Simon spoke to them in a gentle voice. He would have to act fast. The cold was coming. Fast. He did what he could to stem the flow of blood that was seeping out of the wound. It was deep, but not all that threatening to James’s life. It would just be really, really painful! After about five minutes, the two women came back, arms full to the brim with bottles, gauzes, and a large half full bottle of Bourbon. 2017, a good year. Before starting, Simon looked around the room. Mal, Zoë, Jayne, and two other Frye’s with shotguns were at the windows, shooting out at the closest Reavers outside. The ship that was outside was now landed, all its occupants disgorged, in favor of the usual massacre. No one wanted to miss this. There were two more Frye’s in the kitchen, shooting out the windows there. In all, some seven people were shooting at the Reavers. And, wouldn’t you know it, most of ‘em were charging the house, cuz they had circled the wagons, and now they had to break it. Again, joy. Simon grinned wryly and started working. He put some liquor around the wound, and gripped the knife. James gasped as the knife smoothly slid out of him. It turned into a scream of pain when Simon poured some of Bourbon on it to clean it. No matter who you are, that hurts. Simon bunched some of the gauze into the wound, then wrapped the rest around James’s torso to keep it in place. Hell, it stopped the flow. Simon could give him a full exam back on Serenity Simon felt the crash more than he heard it. The Reaver had bullet holes in it, but still made it in. It had jumped through the closed window, breaking the glass and spilling it onto the ground. It landed on the lad there, pulling him down with it, landing on top of him. The knife it held flashed down, once, twice, thrice. Bullets flew from Vera, and the Reaver fell off the boy, dead. Simon ran over to him; he couldn’t be even sixteen. One hand still feebly gripped his gun. Simon held him down, trying to asses the damage, but the boy gripped his arm in his free hand. His voice was shaking, and his chest and stomach were torn open cruelly by the knife. Simon had never learned the lads name. His own family would die in his arms, and would only be a nameless face in his mind. That didn’t strike him as right, somehow. “Momma, momma, momma? I wanna go home, mamma, mamma. Momma, m-m-momma, take me home, momma. Please, ma-ma-ma….” He coughe dup blood and bile, and his grip tightened in death. Then the hand fell back, leaving Simon staring into the boys eyes. Brown eyes. Just like Kaylee’s… glazed over in death. Beautiful brown eyes, ain’t never gonna open again. Simon pulled the boys eyelids down. He still gripped the knife he had pulled out of James’s back. Now, his grip tightened on it, and let the cold claim him as its own. No, not its own. The cold was his, his to use. A weapon. The greatest weapon there could be. *** All of it was a blur. Somehow, he got outside. The door, the window… it didn’t matter. He was in among the Reavers… brothers bound by blood and battle. Now, brother struck down brother. Reaver… Simon… Reaver… Simon… all is forgiven in battle. All is paid in blood. He felled them at every corner, spilled the blood of a dozen within his first five minutes outside. Reavers don’t fight Reavers. Simon had given up being a Reaver. They didn’t know that… yet. They stood there, like lambs for the slaughter… well, the first few did. Then they fought back. The Frye’s and the crew had sallied forth; they now fought with the Reavers outside the house. Simon took one of ‘em through its bloody neck with his knife. He had two blades now, and it spilled Reaver brown blood onto the fertile ground they fought and died on. Suddenly, Simon found himself alone. Or, to be correct, the only living thing around. Plenty of bodies still around. A scream. A Reaver, one of the very last ones ,launched itself at him, knife held high, ready to stab, to tear, to rip, to kill, to burn, to hurt, to kill. Boom. The beast was launched sideways by the blast, careening into the ground, where it lay, twitching, body almost cut in half. And there stood James Frye, grinning at Simon, holding a smoking ten gauge shot gun. “Well, now, ya come back, or Kaylee and Maddy will have my hide!” Simon grinned right back at him. *** Very last Reaver, caught like a rat in a trap, back to a ravine, with a few Frye’s standing guard over it, getting ready to charge in and end its miserable life. Simon went up to them, still feeling a mite nippy. He watched the thing, looking it in the eyes. It kept out of shotgun range, but only just. The hackles on the back of Simon’s neck stood up on end, and he had an overwhelming desire to charge the thing, this spawn of Miranda, this thing so much alike to himself. A soft hand came on his shoulder, and he turned to find Kaylee there, eyes wide. He smiled reassuringly at her. “Its okay, bao-bei. I’m okay.” She embraced him, and kissed him heartily on the lips. Every time he… he… she never knew if she’d get him back again or not. It scared her, more than Simon knew. But, it weren’t his fault, it was the- There were yells from the guards, and they both turned to find the Reaver walking slowly toward them, knife held out in front, level. Simon slowly moved forward. The guards leveled their guns at the Reaver. “Wait,” said Simon. They relaxed their grip on the triggers. The Reaver got to within ten feet of Simon, then stopped. The knife fell from its hand, flashing in the light of the early morning sun that was rising now. It started to make a rasping noise. Then… words. “…Help… me… please…”