Eighteen. Check. Just to prove it he put a tick beside the item on his list underneath the entry for sutures. Eighteen packs of swabs, ready for use. And more in the small storage compartment at the rear of the cargo bay. Not that he considered it likely they’d be needing swabs, let alone that many. Mal had promised there’d be no bloodshed. Still, what Mal promised and what ultimately came to be were often quite different.

Simon sighed. There wasn't one of the adults who didn’t have scars, some more than others. Even he’d got a few, and he didn’t consider himself to be an action man at all. Luckily the children had escaped serious … although Ethan had the scar down his chest, and there were … Maybe he did need to count the swabs every so often, after all.

Besides, it calmed him. With River out doing God knows what, the others all at the meeting, he felt the tension like a wet blanket wrapped around his shoulders, occasionally being zapped by some friendly person with an electric cattle prod. Or at least how he thought that might feel. Not that he actually wanted to try it. But counting supplies helped, took his mind off the images that played on the back of his retinas, of bodies lying on the ground, of blood, of …

“Daddy?”

He turned his head towards the doorway and smiled at his daughter. “What is it, sweetheart?”

Bethie rolled her foot. “Wanted to apologise.”

The smile faded a little. “Why? What have you done?”

“Nothing!” the little girl insisted. “Much,” she added, feeling the need to be scrupulously honest. She looked down at the deck plating. “We were playing ‘lections, and …”

The smile returned. “I know. Your Aunts told me.”

She glanced up, an expression of annoyance crossing her face but quickly gone. “Well, I … we …”

Simon lowered himself to the infirmary floor and held out his arms. “Come here,” he said, and Bethie ran to him, sitting on his thigh. “So what do you want to apologise for?”

“I did it because I wanted to tell people what to do.”

“