Mal worried about Jayne moving around so much. The man had started losing color and going weak, when he should have been getting stronger. It was easy to believe that Jayne’s rapid weight drop and loss of appetite was due to him not working out twenty-four hours a day, but Mal feared the worse and wished fiercely that he still had a medic on board. Mal had a notion that something inside was bleeding or ruptured or wreaking some kind of havoc. He kicked himself for paying so much for that medical scanner and handing it over to Simon without learning how to use it himself. He should’ve known that one day he’d need to know how it worked. He stayed up late now, alternating between the instruction manual for the thing and the medical texts, but it was just too much to teach himself what he was seeing on that gorram monitor – even when it was scanning his own hand. Mal had taken Simon’s presence for granted, thinking that if he just kept the Doc safe, he’d have him until they were both old and gray. He should’ve spent a few hours learning from Simon. He should’ve spent more time getting to know the boy. He should’ve…

Unbidden, a tear rolled out of Mal’s eye and off the tip of his chin. He turned his head to hide it, but Inara must have been watching him because she placed a hand on his arm almost immediately. It was just the one tear that fell, and it surprised Mal that it came at all.

“She’ll be okay,” Inara said softly. He looked over at her, dressed plainly in a flowy shirt and pants she’d clearly borrowed from Zoë. Inara tended to dress plainer these days, partly because she didn’t have much of a choice, but mostly because a Companion walking into a rimworld hospital would cause too much of a stir. But even when she toned things down, she stood out. At least she did to Mal.

They were waiting in the brightly lit hospital hallway. Jayne was two flights up getting a proper medical scan, Kaylee was behind the closed door across from them. She’d been fussy and weepy all morning and he’d had his arm around her the