Thick. Chapter A. Plans.

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*The characters and their world belong to Mr. Whedon and company; the mistakes and the follies are solely mine.

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“Simon, you’re back?” Kaylee came into the infirmary. And stopped short. “You’re bleeding? Wode tian...” She was stammering, hands out like they could staunch a wound across the room; Simon’s white shirt was bright red, as he leaned heavily over the sink. He turned, hands red, shirtfront red, a red streak on his forehead.

“Kaylee?” He looked alarmed. She could not bring herself to move, and her hands, half-curled into fists, hovered mid-air. All she could do was babble, thinking she could light on a way to fix him by running through all her options. That maybe by naming it, she could move to do it:

“Simon? Should I get—shouldn’t you be sitting. Sit, sit, Simon, sit, I’ll go get the Captain. Or Zoe? Or...”

“What? No, oh, it’s nothing, Kaylee.”

“Nothing? You’re covered in...what happen-ed? Does it hurt? No of course it, does, what—”

“No.” Simon’s face relaxed at the sight of her concern. It loosened something tense across his shoulders. “Kaylee, no, it’s not mine. Not my blood. I was just—a little girl came in. Cut her head on something; scalp wounds bleed. A lot. I didn’t have the chance...”

“I thought you were just going for supplies...” Kaylee sank onto the infirmary’s chair, flopped back. She breathed out in a rush, looking up at the too white ceiling. Simon turned back to the sink, covering a smile at her theatrical response. As he finished washing off his hands, he looked down. His shirt was a distinctly worrisome red, he noticed. Perhaps Kaylee had not been overly dramatic. He explained to Kaylee, over the sound of running water. Some townsman, his own hands bloody, his face panicked and pale, had pulled Simon from the pharmacy across the street to local clinic, babbling about the doctor being gone to and pointing to his little girl, limp in her mother’s arms, the woman immediately begging for