Rings Hollow, Part 4.
“Now they’re not all ripe yet but I figured with a just a little sugar we could…” Simon didn’t get finished explaining. Perhaps he should’ve waited a moment more before removing his hands from her eyes but the way Kaylee turned and kissed him like her life depended upon it kept him from regretting it too much.
“An’ you say you’re no good at keepin’ secrets,” Kaylee breathed as she pulled away, giving off the perennial intoxicant of sweetness and engine grease. She darted a hand out to one of the half green, half red strawberries nestled in a small container on the kitchen counter of which Jayne had helpfully eaten three during Simon’s absence. Of course Mal would pick this of all moments to make his return.
“We need to talk,” he barked at Simon, breaking stride only to express without words that he wanted Simon to follow him.
“Cap’n he didn’t do anything wrong! Gerald’s locked up tight. He’s done everything that you…” Kaylee went on a plaintive defensive.
“Kaylee! Hush!” Mal clutched at the air with untold frustration.
“No sir, I will not, I will…” Kaylee kept right on with her tirade.
“You really thought that’d work?” Jayne commented quietly, working a knife edge against a whetstone at the dinner table.
“Something has to, eventually…” Mal muttered as he stalked off towards the bridge.
“Kaylee it’s ok,” Simon put calming hands on her shoulders and then turned to follow the Captain.
“What is it?” He asked with trepidation as he came onto the bridge.
“Close the door,” Mal instructed, slumped in the pilot’s seat staring out at the black. Simon did as he said and lent back against the cool of the metal.
“What…”
“Could you make good with that station?” Mal asked abruptly.
“I don’t understand…make good…?” Simon was confused.
“If you had the run of that place, could you turn this thing around?”
“Turn it around?! Captain we’re not even sure if there are any uninfected worlds left in this system. Let alone what, if anything, befell the Alliance fleet after its departure. Make good in what possible sense?” Simon would’ve sounded incredulous if Mal didn’t have that determined air about him. It was something that had been absent for a long while, buried somewhere under a mantle of responsibility and misplaced guilt. “You spoke to me once about a raggedy edge and us being the ones on it, well I say to you now that for that to still be the case there would have to be something left for us to be on the edge of.” He chose his words carefully.
“Good for us, and good for Zoe and them down there,” Mal clarified, something about him showing through as burnt and broken by making too many of the kind of decisions Simon hoped he would never have to face.
“That’s not much.” Simon let out a sigh. “But it is possible I could turn up something, I’m not sure what exactly, but given the right facilities and equipment it is entirely possible we could at least find a way to inoculate what few survivors there are. And I mean legitimately inoculate, not that snake-oil Farcus has been peddling to his unfortunate little populace.” He spoke with strong distaste, “But this is purely hypothetical. Farcus would never let me near his labs. Any progress that’s gleaned from anything he’ll simply use to solidify his control over what little that’s left. What’s more I still suspect he has hopes or designs of extracting something, anything, from River,”
“Don’t go worrying yourself about that, doc.”
“What exactly is it that you’re proposing?” He had Simon intrigued.
“You got dinner plans tomorrow night?”
~
“I must say that this is most unexpected, Captain.” Farcus still seemed to be sizing Mal up as he led the way to the docking collar.
“Well, I raised the idea. The doctor, Simon…said he was open to it, provided we met on mutual ground. I figure the shuttle craft’s about the closest thing we’ve got.” Mal nodded at the hatch.
“Shuttle craft…” He looked at the battered hatchway as if it had just insulted his parentage.
“Don’t fret, Inara’s given it the once over. Believe me, if it gets her seal of approval then it is most definitely up to muster,” Mal blustered and put on his best winning smile.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” The distain in Farcus’s voice made Mal’s fingers play involuntarily at an absent pistol butt. “Well?” He looked enquiringly at the guard waiting by the hatch.
“It’s clean sir, no weapons aboard, only the one life sign. It’s Dr. Tam.” The guard confirmed.
“Thank you. That will be all.” Farcus dismissed the soldier, who reluctantly trooped away down the corridor. “So I finally get to meet the illustrious Simon Tam, how delightful. Any particular reason why his sister declined to attend?”
“Having one of her turns, I’m afraid. She’s a little out of sorts for company as…civilized as yourself,” Mal managed it with a straight face.
“No need for false platitudes, Captain,” Farcus waved a hand at him dismissively as he opened the hatch and stepped inside. “Dr. Tam!” He enthused like a leering cat as he moved to shake Simon’s hand. Then something made him freeze.
“W…wait…who….what is that?!” He gestured frantically at something. He was too horrified to even notice as Simon moved swiftly past him and out the hatch into the station. Mal remained steadfastly outside the doorway, one hand on the controls.
“Oh I’m none too good with names, he’s been dying to meet you though. No, no…it’s coming back to me…I think he said his name was Gerald.” Mal’s voice was nothing but cold steel as the hatch closed with a hiss, a moan and a scream.