A/N: Thanks to everyone for all the shiny comments. This one is longer, I promise. Neroli gets the usual kudos for pointing out the less than perfect scenes.

For Disclaimers, see Ch1.

Chapter 5: Allies and Confrontations

Diyu – hell

Go-se - dog crap

After his talk with Inara, Mal had decided that their plans should move slowly at least until Simon was fully on board. The information that Jayne and Wash had extracted from the doctor gave the crew a starting place to find Simon's previous contacts. Hopefully, they would learn that there was only one facility. Otherwise, they would have to hope that River only felt the pain of victims who were held in the same place she had been a captive. Mal dreaded the possibility that this adventure could be the starting point for another war because he doubted he could recruit enough manpower at this juncture.

Mal turned the pilot's chair when he heard footsteps on the stairs behind him. Simon paused in the doorway to the bridge and leaned heavily on the wall. The boy looked like he had stayed awake for the past week. "Have a seat before you fall down Doc," Mal told him.

Simon blinked wearily as if he had dozed off in the short span of time that he had stopped moving. Slowly he straightened and staggered to the rarely used co-pilot's seat. Mal fought a grin as he realized that their positions mimicked the ones they had taken during their first heart to heart session following the events on Whitefall. "Something on your mind son?" Mal asked as much to get the doctor to talk as to wake him up.

Simon blinked several times to bring his surroundings back in focus. He'd spent the morning and most of the day either reassuring River or desperately trying to find something to block these new nightmares or visions that plagued her so. Now the rest of the ship was once again asleep and Simon found himself unable to join them even though his body was t