They've been back to New Canaan a number of times, in the two years since the mobile clinic got its start there. By this time he knows almost half of the settlers by name, and nearly all of them by sight -- enough so that he can pick out the new faces. (There aren't many. The Alliance hasn't put out a call for colonists to come to New Canaan in ( Read more... )

It's a pleasant evening in early autumn, the air cooling as the last traces of sunset color fan upward from behind the buildings. Ehrmann Square is populated enough that there's a line in front of each of the the coffee kiosks, but not really crowded; the little tables scattered around the plaza are more than half empty ( Read more... )

The study is a narrow room, its furnishings tasteful and rigidly respectable.

He stands near the fireplace, hands folded behind his back, and examines the clock on the mantelpiece.

Mary Lennox's boarding school.

They've been discussing the plan for some weeks now, he and River, and more lately Galadan. As a theory, then as an uneasy possibility, and finally at the level of we will need the following supplies.

* * *

He talks with Kaylee about it, once it gets to that point.

What can I do? she asks, and he has to tell her ( Read more... )

There's a lot they need to talk about.

Simon sits in his room, on the edge of the double-wide bed, and goes over it in his mind.

You've been angry. You've been trying not to be.

The question is why.

He tries writing it out, and winds up staring at a blank page with a pen in his hand, his mind a blank.

A while later: Why have I been angry ( Read more... )

It's a little after one in the morning, ship's time, and Simon can't sleep.

In the kitchen, stirring honey into his tea, he finds himself studying the light from the bridge. The crowd at Milliways is too much for right now, but ... some company might be nice.

Mug in hand, he knocks lightly on the doorframe.

He stands in the doorway of his room, his room that used to be their room. Studying it.

That's her room.
Yes.

And here you are, she said, still back here tryin' to act like nothin's changed, you didn't even move nothin' around and it's like you're just tryin' to prove you can get along just fine without either of us.

It's empty ( Read more... )

He's feeling ... worked over, is possibly the way to describe it, when he returns from Crowley's flat. Exhausted in spirit.

If he sees Galadan first, he decides, he'll ask for the door back to Milliways and go home. If he sees his father first ... he'll bring it up, exhausted or not.

Decision made, he steps into his parents' house.

A quick word of thanks to Galadan for giving him the doorway, and he's off toward the public-transit line he located earlier: a commuter train into the heart of the city, with a stop barely twenty seconds' walk from the Gage MedAcad campus ( Read more... )

It's Simon's birthday today ( Read more... )