If there ever was more of a time she wanted to curl up into a ball and cry herself to death, this was it. Simon raised a small bit of dust as he ran away. Away from Kaylee, away from Rive, and Serenity, and Mal and Inara and Zoe and Jayne and-

No. Can't go up in smoke, not now. Simon needs her. He got broke, and she could fix him. Only she could fix him.

Kaylee watched as her love and life left her with fear in his eyes. Blood was on the ground, her crys rent the air in twain. Ah! the sound of prophecy fulfilled!!!

***

Cold. Cold and dank and dark and doom and cold and dark and loss and hate and cold and cold and cold and cold and cold and-

Simon looked at the specters that had plagued him since that fateful day on Ptah. He just hadn't noticed them. Now they stood before him, unmasked and full of the voice of doom.

His eyes were dry, yet they still held the unshed tears of a thousand days and a trillion lost souls. He stared into the darkness of this little hollow that he had used to hide from his fears. He spoke in a way that sent chills up the spines of the living. He spoke as one already dead. "What can I do?"

***

It spoke to him, this monster and what was now only a shadow of a man. Book knew that what he had said before, about Reavers still being men, was a lie. He had seen it proven wrong before. Monsters existed everywhere, one just needed to look closely at each and every person one found. He had one, Mal had one, Zoe, Wash, Jayne, even Kaylee had one. River hadhad hers unleashed. And Simon...Simon was one.

"What can I do?" it said to him again. Book looked at the waith, this shadow of a soul.

"Come out into the light. We can help you in your trial. The final test awaits you still."

Slowly, tenatively, this thing came out into the sunlight. Born in the dark of the void, sunlight cleansed this filth of its fear. The fear was gone from its eyes, and it looked upon the ones it had doomed.And, lo, upon the broken ground of Ariel, the