(Untitled)

[simon_doctor]

Kaylee's out for the evening, having stayed just long enough to say hello to Jordie when he arrived. (She's going to Milliways, Simon knows; she'll be back late.)

They're on their own for dinner.

Comments

[walk_ins]

"I'm hoping you'll forgive me for saying so, but Simon -- "

Jordie doesn't look away. "He works for the feds now. He is the feds. Are you sure it doesn't matter?"

[simon_doctor]

Simon looks up, and meets his eyes squarely.

"I'm sure."

[walk_ins]

A loose shrug, and Jordie settles back.

"All right."

Still not voting for him to save my life.

[simon_doctor]

"There's a reason we're back on speaking terms." Gentle, and a little wry. "Which is something of an achievement, considering that the first time we spoke after all this, I told him that there were people who'd gladly kill him for what he'd done and I wouldn't stop them."

[walk_ins]

Sardonic:

"Nice to know you still exhibit a modicum of common sense, Tam."

[simon_doctor]

His return glance is just as sardonic. "That was after I punched him."

[walk_ins]

"And was it the organization or the people who'd see him dead who shot him a few years back?"

[simon_doctor]

"Neither one," he says without hesitation. "That was unrelated."

Shot isn't exactly what happened. No need to go into that right now.

[walk_ins]

Jordie looks at him, and shakes his head.

"You got ditched," he says. Flat. "And I have no idea how you begin to be able to forgive that."

[simon_doctor]

Simon looks at him, and shakes his head minutely.

"It would have been easier to forgive if it had been me they'd ditched. I was fine."

[walk_ins]

"With no career, no clean record, and for all any of us thought, no friends?" Simon's not the only one shaking his head. "I'm not saying you shouldn't've gone through with it -- absolutely, absolutely you should have done it, absolutely it was worth it -- but do you really think that little of what you had?"

[simon_doctor]

(you gave up everything you had)

"I was fine when it started, I mean. If I'd gone along with my parents' advice, if I hadn't ..." He trails off, and brushes that aside with a motion of one hand.

"They didn't abandon me. They abandoned River. And I think she forgave them for it long before I did."

[walk_ins]

The sentiment is understandable. It's one Jordie agrees with. Still, the point stands: Simon doesn't have it in him to be upset on his own behalf. And his parents effectively ruined both their children. It was something they all knew: Simon had the wherewithal to be brilliant. Jordie was just striving for competent surgeon who could volunteer his services in understaffed clinics in Fremont a weekend a month or so. But Liz had her research, and Simon -- medical elite. They all knew it. All of them.

"All right," Jordie says, and scrubs a hand over his face. "Okay. What's next. In the story."

[simon_doctor]

They got sidetracked; it takes Simon a moment to remember where they were. (Absently, he eats a few more bites of his lamb-and vegetable skewer while he's thinking.)

"...I don't know how they got River out of the Academy," he says. "Not the details. I met with one of them on Persephone, and took delivery of a camouflaged cryobox with River inside."

[walk_ins]

Jordie settles back. His fingertip sets to moving over the upholstery again.

[simon_doctor]

"And I bought passage on a cargo ship heading as far out on the Rim as I could find. I ... didn't originally plan to stay on it."

He's smiling faintly; it's reminiscent, and not entirely happy.

"I never really planned anything. I just had to keep River safe."

Beat.

Softly: "I was so scared. I can't begin to tell you."