“Where am I?” a very soft an weak voice said, pulling Simon away from the medical encyclopedia, which he’d been poring over for the past two hours.

The young doctor turned to see Evangeline, pail and slightly trembling, trying to push herself into a sitting position. “No don’t,” Simon said quickly, stumbling a little as he hurried to attend the young girl. “Don’t try and get up. Just lie there.”

“Who are you?” The girl demanded, obviously upset as she disobeyed his orders and forced herself into a sitting position. “This isn’t home. Are you a kidnapper?”

“No, you’re on a ship, I’m a doctor. Didn’t your family tell you that you’d be going on a trip?”

“A trip?” the girl asked, calming just a little. “Mama said we were leaving.”

“Well you’ve, ah, you’ve left.”

“You’re a doctor?” the girl asked, somewhat suspiciously.

“Yes I am,” Simon said, daring to take a step closer to the beautiful little girl. She reminded him of the porcelain dolls River had collected as a little girl. There was almost no pigment in her skin, her lips had a slightly purplish tint, her flaxen hair was a mess of perfect ringlet curls and her eyes were a hauntingly deep blue. Small and thin for a thirteen-year-old, she looked fragile and every time she moved Simon couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she would shatter. “I’m going to be taking care of you for the next few days, until we reach New Dallas.”

“What kind of doctor?” the girl asked. She was clearly unimpressed by him and his infirmary.

“I guess I’m more or less a general practitioner,” Simon said after a moment of hesitation.

“You don’t know?” Evangeline asked.

“I was a surgeon, until I joined the crew of Serenity.”

“The crew of what?”

“Oh, this ship, her name’s Serenity.”

“Is she serene?”

Simon smiled softly, “Not usually.”

“It’s a dumb name.”

The doctor felt oddly offended by the girl’s observation. He’d had similar thoughts regarding the ship’s name in the past but Serenity was slowly becoming home, and her crew family. He didn’t re