A.N. - It was already an angsty chapter, but then Ali D (not to name names) requested a conversation between Mal and Michael. So I pushed most of the original stuff to the next chapter (yes, now you get 11 parts) and Mal, being naturally tactless, brought this up.

PART 8 – Speaking Truth

Jamie hadn’t meant to spend so much time with his parents, and he certainly hadn’t intended to suggest a heist. It was strange having grown up with so much crime happening about him and then going to a core world and trying to play the part of an honest student. For some reason, people seemed to think that any medic with that kind of upbringing was involved with organ smuggling or experimenting on patients. If he managed to convince them that mostly it was just patching up burns, bullet holes, knife wounds, they assumed the payment was dishonest. Jamie kept to himself mostly. Being younger than his classmates didn’t help, but in his mind, the sooner he finished school the better. He’d tested out of classes so that he could avoid the study groups and projects. He still showed up to lectures as a sign of respect to his professors. The MedAcad was on the cutting edge of medical science and the teachers were always dropping in tidbits of unpublished research that would never make it onto an exam.

Having lunch with his sister and his friends had been uplifting for him. On Serenity, he’d always had to fight to be alone and get space to himself, and he hadn’t even realizes how lonely he’d become living alone on Osiris the last few years. All the stories his dad had told had made it seem like such a fairy tale place, but his dad had grown up differently and arrived to school with a different reputation than Jamie had and Jamie did not fit in that world. He didn’t even know if he wanted to.

“Your turn,” Emily said, handing Jamie the rubber ball. They’d been sitting in the hospital waiting room playing jacks for almost an hour now and Jamie was thinking on calling it quits because he was getting tired of retrieving t