It was the longest two minutes of Jayne’s life. Sitting next to Freya, holding her hand, hearing her breathing getting slower, shallower. He couldn’t look at her, at the almost smile on her face.

At last Simon dropped through the hole and took his place. He felt her skin, checking her pulse. “Show me,” he said.

Jayne held out the vial.

“Damn it.” He put the hypo he’d brought with him against her neck and plunged it home.

“We in time?” Jayne asked, seeing the others come down the ladder after him, crowding into the small space.

“I don’t … No!” He shouted, tugging the pin from the shoulder of Freya’s dress and pulling the front down, exposing her breasts.

“Simon …” Kaylee protested quietly.

“Her heart’s stopped.” The young doctor swiftly opened the other pack he’d brought with him, thrusting the needle between her ribs and injecting it as he felt it puncture the pericardium.

Kaylee thrust her hand into her mouth to stop from screaming as he withdrew the needle and began CPR.

They waited. Waited with no sound but the hard air Simon was forcing into her lungs, urging her to breathe on her own, counting between each one. Waited for an eternity.

Then a ragged noise. The noise of someone drawing a breath unwillingly.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she tried to focus. A man. Sitting next to her, his hands on her flesh … but it wasn’t him. Not him.

“No!” she cried out, barely whispering as she realised they hadn’t let her leave, wouldn’t let her go to him. She rolled over, away from them, bringing her knees up to her naked chest as she sobbed with despair.

In the small house by the beach, the sleeping man reached out, trying to grasp something, pull it into the safety of his embrace, even as the woman next to him dried his tears.

---

Kaylee was shaking so hard she could hardly play the recording. They were all in the galley, all except Simon, who was sitting with Freya in the infirmary, checking no permanent damage had been done by the poison.

“Go ahead,” Zoe