Tourniquet
Simon was thirteen the first time he went offworld. It wasn't a big deal, a small passenger cruise to Osiris' moon and back, a special family outing to celebrate Mother's latest promotion.
While Mother and Dad sipped champagne and stood in front of the viewing windows, Simon stayed back in the lounge, shut his eyes and clutched the arm of his chair as tightly as he could.
He could hear the padding across the floor, and River settling herself into the seat next to him, but he ignored her. "Hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight."
"Simon." River lay her hand down on his. It was warm and small and slightly sticky.
"Ninety-seven, ninety-six, ninety-five."
"Simon!"
He opened his eyes to glare at her. "What is it?"
River sat kneeling in her seat, facing him and smiling. "It's hit."
"What?"
"The virus. It's hit already." She shifted his hand to check the time on his watch, then nodded solemnly. "Yes. It should have spread from the major metropolitan centers out into the wilderness now."
"The virus?"
"Yes." River sighed dramatically. "I'm afraid they're all goners."
Simon bit his lip and thought over his options for a moment. "All of them are goners," he repeated.
"Yes. The entire planet will be dead by the time we return." She scooted closer on her knees and tightened her hold on his hand. "We're going to have to replenish and repopulate Osiris all by ourselves."
"I can see how that's the only option left to us," Simon said. "It's a good thing we're so skilled in those areas."
River nodded again. "We're the last of our kind, Simon. We're in this together." She moved off her knees to sit cross legged on the seat. "You can go back to counting," she said. "I'll warn you when it's time to fight off the vicious mutant remnants."
"I thought everyone was dead."
"Everyone but the vicious mutant remnants," River said calmly.
"Ah." He'd moved to grip her hand back at some point, without noticing, but now that it was there, he let it stay. Closing his eyes again, he started to silently count down.
"It'll be a tough battle," River said from beside him, "but we should win in the end. Especially since they don't have any feet."
He's no longer surprised when he wakes to her face in the middle of the night.
She stands a few inches away from the bed, one hand clutching the thin pale cotton of her nightgown.
He sits up quickly, letting the blankets fall to his stomach. "River? What is it? Why aren't you sleeping?"
"They're so loud," she says, her voice fretful, frustrated. He knows it's an optical illusion, but her eyes look so big, so wide and clear as they shine in the dim cabin. "They won't stop dancing. I told them to stop, Simon."
"Shh. It's okay, mei mei." He's said those words so many times. He can't stop and think about their meaning. He reaches out for her hand, and she jerks back.
"You were sleeping. You were here, but away. You were home, at the hospital, with Mom and Dad. Good doctor, happy doctor. Just like before."
"River--"
"Shhhhh," she says, mimicking his attempt at comfort from a moment before, and laying a finger on his lips. "I know, big brother."
He looks up at her, and she smiles for him, her pure wide grin that hurts at much as anything else. Reaching up, he takes her hand to hold between his two, away from his face.
"Is it quiet in here?" She nods slowly, and he tries to bring up a smile for her. "Do you think you can sleep in here?"
She bites her lip, and nods again, and he scoots over towards the wall to before pulling her in towards him.
"You can't make it better," she says. Her heads rests in the crook of his neck, her hair falling along his bare chest, and her voice is muffled. "Sticks and stones and broken bones, but the medicine doesn't work anymore. The dish fell and the pieces all scattered."
"I can," he says. He closes his eyes and strokes her hair. It smells like engine grease, from sitting by Kaylee and watching her work this afternoon. Underneath he can detect sweat, and even further down there's the clean smell of soap. "I will," he says, and he hopes she isn't seeing how scared he is that he won't.
It's enough that he fails her in real life. It's too much when his mind does it, too.
Their life isn't miserable. It isn't even unhappy, most of the time, and that was more than Simon really expected. He's still surprised sometimes, when he thinks about that, that they're both still alive. Alive, and together.
River has good days. Bright, lucid days where Simon can think that the medicine really is working, even better than he hoped.
She was calm in the infirmary this morning, letting him pierce and inject her with minimal fuss. At breakfast and lunch, she was quiet as she ate her food, watching everybody silently, smiling and laughing with everyone else; afterwards, she'd wandered off alone while Simon worked.
He's watching her out of the corner of his eye right now, as he sits on the edge of the balcony above them and tries to read. Kaylee and River are playing hopscotch, using buttons from Kaylee's sewing kit and squares drawn with duct tape. There are occasional shrieks and giggles, but fewer now than when the game began; the girls are fierce in their competitions. Kaylee has better balance, skipping through with an ease borne of years of practice, but her skill at aiming the button doesn't approach River's.
Simon is reading the book Kaylee has lent him, one of the three she holds hidden in her bunk. It's not the sort of thing that Simon would normally choose for his literature -- it seems to be a romance of some type, set back on Earth-that-was, with a spunky heroine, a dashing but somewhat rude hero, and a remarkable number of run-on sentences. The only reading he's brought with him, however, are his medical texts, and really, the amusement they carry is limited. Especially after several dozen readings.
Still, though, the novel's engaging -- some cliches are cliches for a reason, and it really is mildly amusing. The protaganist is slowly making her way into her lover-to-be's unwilling heart and teaching him to love again, even though it seems like neither of them know it yet. She's just found out about the tragic death of his bride on their honeymoon, five years back, and slowly discovering their bickering's covering up true love.
"Enjoying it?"
He jumps, caught by surprise, and manages to smile up at Kaylee, who stands a few feet away. "Oh, um. Yes, actually. It's very--" He trails off, gesturing vaguely, unable to quite think of an appropriate word.
Kaylee smiles crookedly and settles herself down beside him. "You looked it. You were so wrapped up up here you missed the end of the game." She swings her feet lightly.
"Oh." He sets down the book beside him and looks down at the floor below. They haven't cleaned up the court, but River's gone and Kaylee's up here with him. "Who won?"
Kaylee rolls her eyes and says, in an adorable and slightly grumbling way, "Your sister." She pauses for a moment and gives him a sideways glance. "I think the girl's some kind of hopscotch prodigy. She told me she'd never played before."
"Really?" Simon has no idea whether or not that's true.
"And she beat me, Kaylee Frye, neighborhood hopscotch champion five years running!" Kaylee shakes her head. Her hair shakes with her. It looks soft. Simon looks away.
"She's very talented."
"I've noticed," Kaylee says. She lets her foot swing over to bump against Simon's. "How's your leg doing?"
He shrugs. "Better. Still a pain, but it's healing well." He smiles at her. "It should be as good as new pretty soon."
"Shiny."
When he looks back over at her, he thinks she's scooted a bit closer. Their shoulders are almost touching. Hesitantly, he says, "Kaylee--"
"Hmm?" She raises her eyebrow, nudges him with her shoulder.
"I--" He's not quite sure what he wants to say, but Kaylee looks expectant, and almost excited. He's not even sure what emotion he's feeling, just a wish for something, to say something to her. "I--" he says again, and that's when he hears River's shrieking.
From the mess, it sounds like, and he scrambles to his feet, wincing at the weight on his leg.
"I have to go," he says, feeling vaguely apologetic, but he can still hear her going.
"I know." Kaylee lifts herself back onto her feet, and wipes her hands on the front of her overalls. "I'll just go check on the engine, I reckon."
Her smile looks different this time, he thinks, but he's already on the way to his sister.
And one night the pattern changes. She's already in his bed when he comes down to sleep.
He pauses at the bottom of the ladder. She's sleeping peacefully, an expression of earnest concentration on her face, and memory hits him so fast he feels nauseated: home, sleep, peaceful and easy and unbroken, his brilliant baby sister...
He crawls into the bed as quietly as he can, trying not to disturb or wake her; she sighs softly and moves back closer to him. He wraps his arms around her waist and presses a kiss to the back of her hair, staring at the opposite wall with open eyes as he waits for sleep.
The next night, she stops sleeping in her bunk altogether.
"Here's the plan," Mal says, in the casual voice of someone who takes being listened to for granted. And it's earned enough, too, because there isn't anyone sitting in this room who's going to challenge him. "We'll dock at Bellerophon in twelve hours. Zoe, Jayne and I are taking care of the cargo, but I want the rest of you to go about your regular outings. We're gonna be in for a day or two, and I don't want anything looking shady here, all right? So go on into town, make your purchases and have yourselves a nice shiny time, got it?"
"Bellerophon was the Pearl of the Rim," River says. She doesn't look up from her cross-legged position, drawing designs on the floor with her fingertips. "Three small moons orbiting. Population 10,047,000. Once a successful and prosperous planet with a blossoming technological sector, after the war, the economy collapsed, and its major industry is now agriculture. Its fall from grace echoes the ancient myth of Bellerophon, a hero who fell out of favor with the gods."
There's a pause, but not a long one. Simon's noticed that they manage to go between now, most of them: seeing the crazy girl, and not seeing anything at all.
After a beat, Mal says, "Well, I'm sure we all appreciated that history lesson."
>From across the room, Jayne grunts, and Simon glances over to him. "What, she got an 'cyclopedia in there with the crazy now?" He shuts up at the look the captain throws him.
"There are so many sheep," River adds, like an afterthought. "Nations of them. They stare at the sky, planning their revenge and the mathematics of the stars."
Most of the time Simon really does believe that River makes sense on some level, and that it's maybe just a different one, one he can't -- none of the rest of them can -- reach.
Sometimes he doesn't.
"Well," Mal says, clapping his hands together, "ain't nothing gonna top that, so I say we call it a day, all right?"
That's an obvious clue for all of them to go, but the captain grabs Simon's shoulder and stops him before he can follow the others out.
"I'm thinking, Doc, that maybe you and the girl should sit this one out," he says quietly. "We're going for inconspicuous this time, and she has a tendency to stick out in a crowd." Simon starts to nod and get out of here, but Mal's not done yet. "And I'm not particularly itching to have a repeat of Jiangyin, and I'm thinking you ain't, either." Mal raises his eyebrows and claps him on the back. "We understand each other?"
He doesn't wait for an answer before he leaves, and Simon stands stock still, taking short sharp breathes, as he leaves.
"Hun dan," Simon mutters to himself. "Rutting son of a bitch," and if there was something close by to kick, he would. Bastard telling Simon how to take care of his sister, like he doesn't know himself, like he hasn't been the one taking care of her all this time, like Mal knows anything about her or about them.
He digs his fingernails into his palm, taking slow deep breaths until he can feel himself calm some, and then he straightens up again. It's his turn to help Kaylee with preparing supper.
It's the shaking that wakes him up this time, the shaking and the whimpering he can't quite make out -- it sounds like formulas, maybe, or a language he doesn't know; nonsense, even. Those and the fist straight to his chest.
He sits up as soon as he catches his breath again. "River! River, stop it." She's thrashing side to side, eyes, closed shut, head and body moving in ways that look painful, inorganic. "You have to stop."
"No, I'm not -- you can't -- no, no, no," she moans. "Everything is dark."
"River, stop." He grabs for her shoulders roughly; she twists and struggles, and she's strong for her size, but he's bigger than her and stronger still.
"Don't touch, Simon, stay away..."
"I'm here. We're here. I'm not going anywhere." He relaxes his grip slightly, rubbing her shoulders, and she settles down slowly.
Between deep, shaking breaths, she says, "You shouldn't be here." She's opened her eyes to stare over his shoulder, and he can't quite tell if she's even talking to him. "I don't belong." But she reaches out for his hand and clutches.
He releases his restraints. "River, no. River. Wo ai ni." He kisses her forehead, and she shudders lightly. "I love you." Her temples. "You are my beautiful--" The corners of her eyelids. "--brilliant--" Her cheeks. "--brave--" Her lips. "--amazing sister," he finishes, pressing his lips to the fragile white skin of her collarbone. He closes his eyes and stays there for a moment, two warm breaths against her chest, before moving back up to lie next to her.
"I'm sorry," she says, quiet, so quiet, just barely a whisper, as she squeezes his hand again.
"You don't have anything to be sorry about."
She shakes her head, eyes shut tight again. "No, no, it's my fault, all of it, Simon, it's my--"
"No," he says, firmly as he can. "None of it's your fault." He kisses her softly again on the lips, still holding her hand tightly. "Go back to sleep."
River looks at him, watching him carefully for longer than would seem natural or appropriate. After a minute, she lies down again and rests her head on his chest.
"It's going to be all right," he says quietly. "I promise. You and me together..."
And River holds his hand tight and trembles against him.