Regan Tam switched off the recorded wave and sat back heavily. It had been a little over a day since Simon had mysteriously disappeared. Gabriel had been in a rage, demanding answers from the staff, sending out search parties and screening private investigators. All the while, Regan, tired and ill, had sat very still and waited for it all to die down.

And now this. She would go to him of course, he was her son, her first born child, and he was in trouble. She was a mother after all, his mother, and no amount of estrangement or doubt would ever take that title away from her. And no amount of overbearing husband either.

***

Wash had drifted off to sleep in the pilot’s chair again, working late into the night and forgetting to go to bed. He had been searching vainly for Inara’s shuttles’ transponder signal for the better part of the day, confused and frustrated that he couldn’t find it. It made no sense.

But the beeping from his console did. After dismissing the noise as the new roar from the dinosaur chasing him, Wash roused himself and brought his attention back to the real world. Foggily, he looked to the machines and registered the red light blinking steadily there. In an instant, he was alert and checking the signal, finding a solid trace. Smiling contentedly, he leaned over and signaled Mal. “Captain, I got ‘em.”

***

“I appreciate you coming, and coming alone,” Simon told his mother as he reached out a hand to help her into the shuttle. Kaylee and Inara were both there, sitting across the room on the sofa, while Simon guided his mother to the cortex screen across the way. Easing her into a chair, he knelt next to her and said, “I’m sorry I left so suddenly, but I had to go. I have to help River.”

Regan gazed into her son’s all-too-mature eyes and knew that whatever he suspected about the Academy, he was probably right. She and Gabriel had been wrong. Wrong about so many things but most of all wrong to ever, ever doubt their brilliant son – the doctor. He had made them so pr