Warnings: Character death, extreme violence, attempted non-con/rape, angst.

Thanks to for the great beta and to for urging and advising me on.

http://wildannuette.livejournal.com/102125.html>Part1

“Don’t want to hear Simon; shut it out, shut it up inside or go crazy.”

Hands were turning him onto his back now, fingers stroking at his clammy forehead and making him shiver, but Simon couldn’t pull away from them any more then he could stop listening to the soft words. Soft words, so much better than screaming, than begging or pleading. The gun hung limply from his hand but Simon didn’t have the strength to pick it up again, to feel desperation overtake him every time the chamber clicked hollowly. His vision blurred, as he stared up at the sun, almost was all forgotten as the fingers stroked over his face, trying to soothe and calm where there was no such emotion left to muster up.

“Can’t stay here, can’t hide and pretend, face our demons.”

The words were soft but said so firmly, so lucidly that they broke through Simon’s resignation. His sister’s name was murmured from his lips in confusion, as her appearance pulled him back from his preferred reality to actuality. To screams which were growing louder by the moment, cries for help and sounds of fighting invading the warm nothingness his mind had been creating.

“Move now.”

Simon wasn’t sure if she rolled him back onto his belly or if he did, but he was already on his knees ready to crawl away from it all and hide. Ready to forget it all. Then his eyes fell on Jayne, lying so still yet so brutalised and exposed, body open for all to gawp at or degrade. Hurts to feel. There was a nothingness inside Simon; he couldn’t cry, couldn’t scream, couldn’t do anything more than pull himself over to the man who’d saved him, the man who for one brief minute Simon had thought he’d saved too. But it had been only mercy he’d given Jayne.

River was by his side, kneeling down and