Mal stared straight and true down the barrel of his gun at Simon. His eyes were dead calm and held no misgivings about his actions. “Last time I have to repeat myself on my boat.” Mal tilted his head up just slightly, “Doc, you start here.”

For the first time since Simon had stepped onto Serenity, he felt fear. It was a complicated fear. Simon had his arguments with Mal, and without fooling himself he knew that Mal had a problem with Simon and River. But Simon had always had that gut instinct about people, and he had never really, deep down inside worried about his decision to board Serenity. But now, after all of the war stories that Simon had heard from Zoe about Mal, he knew. He knew what it was that made Zoe so loyal to Mal, and with that understanding Simon felt fear.

But buried beneath those feelings was the pure undeniable hatred that he had for anything military in the Alliance. After what River had gone through and was going through Simon discovered new levels to himself that he hadn’t realized that he was capable of. He had always been the polite, quiet person, but the hate that welled up inside of him when he thought on his sister was something he never thought he could feel. But the thought of River brought him to the present again. He quickly looked at the larger man holding the other gun pointed in his direction, and Simon snapped the med kit closed and quickly moved over to Asha.

Mal calmly put the gun back in his holster and turned to watch what Simon was doing. But as he turned he noticed, and quickly pushed aside the fact that Zoe had been standing at attention, and her gun was slightly out of its holster. What she would have done, Mal didn’t really want to think about.

Simon made short work of the dark military jacket and pulled back the black shirt that was underneath. He was momentarily shocked at how many scars she carried, but forced his mind to the task at hand. Her wound didn’t seem to have bled as profusely as Jayne’s, and Simon was able to quickly stabilize her. He stood up, gra