“Well, this is a tiny selection compared with what I’d have available on a core planet. Of course, there it would mostly be done on computers, or by a nurse; but as an intern, I was expected to have a grasp of how to do this without such aids.”
“Top three percent and all,” Mal said, but the remainder that Simon looked down on the situation here as less than ideal had stung a little. He didn’t like being forced to remember that his boat wasn’t the greatest place in the ‘verse—as far as some were concerned.
“… not the most difficult part,” Simon was saying, and Mal realised he hadn’t been paying attention. “Many of my classmates struggled with it, but I found learning emergency room procedures a lot more difficult. I didn’t learn well when there was real pressure.”
Mal nodded. “Ah.”
“What about you, captain?” Simon was still working, but now his eyes sought Mal’s between checking labels and places. “I… did okay at school, I guess. Graduated, joined the army ‘cos I thought it was right.”
“Do you still think that? That it was right?”
“The Alliance taking over the whole ‘verse ain’t right, I know that much.”
“Is that what it’s about, stopping them taking over?”
“Stopping them winning. Stopping them takin’ over the ‘verse and doing like they did to your sister to every clever girl.”
“Captain, I don’t think…” Simon’s voice trailed off. When he let himself, he *did* think. “I mean, it’s possible, but…”
“But what?” Mal asked.
Simon met Mal’s blue eyes. His mind went blank, and then spiralled away down a different path: //but… butt… nice butt… Captain Tightpants, Kaylee had called him. She was right, Mal’s backside was…// Simon didn’t dare wonder when he’d noticed. He forced himself look away from Mal and try and formulate an answer.
“I got River out,” Simon replied at last, “No point thinking about anything else until I’ve worked out what they did to her.”
He only wished he could stop thinking pointless thoughts, like how Mal looked when…
Aware that he’d stopped moving, Simon turned and walked the four paces across the infirmary to the cabinet where he kept the rest of the drugs.
Watching him every step of the way, Mal twisted on the bench until he was lying down, stretched out, chin propped up on one hand, and able to see the doctor wherever he went in the room.
“You never did tell me exactly how that underground group sprung her.”
“I’m not clear of the details myself. In essence, though, I believe they…” Simon began. He’d been preparing this, knowing that Mal or Zoe or Jayne or Wash or someone—maybe even River herself—would ask one day, and that made it easy to answer without being distracted. “…bribed someone within the compound to help them get through the security…”
//Well, at least I’m not dreaming,// Mal thought, letting his eyelids droop a little as he gazed at Simon, who was still talking, apparently quite happy to go on all night. “…must have been very dangerous, but I suppose they took very precaution they could. I paid them enough…”
Mal’s eyes closed. //I can listen with them shut,// he told himself. It wasn’t very convincing, even from inside.
A couple of sentences later, Mal was asleep, dreaming that he…
… walks, long, easy strides, along the metal corridors that let a person move around Serenity.
The cargo, he knows, is sold, though he can’t recall what it was; the crew are all aboard, the passengers are safe, and the ship is humming happily. Somewhere above, in the engine room, Kaylee is humming, a little cheerful counterpoint to the simple mechanical drone.
He can hear Simon’s voice, distant, talking in the soothing way he does when his sister needs calming.
Mal smiles. The dream ends, fading into darkness, and he sleeps on, peacefully.