The courtesan was dressed impeccably, despite the informal occasion and the painful hour of the evening. Inara never let a soul see her as anything less than proud. She was wearing a gown of silk, shimmering bracelets, and golden earrings, sitting upright- not leaning back- in the examination chair.

Though he was dressed in a simple pullover shirt and comfortable trousers, the man in the room with her seemed almost as regal as she did. Not a hair on his head was out of place and there was not a trace of a whisker on his cheek. “Tidy” is how one of their shipmates referred to him.

After injecting the medication into her outstretched arm, he walked back to his supply cabinet, speaking in a firm but quiet voice. “That should take care of you,” he said. “You won’t need this stuff again for…three weeks.”

She said, “Thank you, Dr. Tam.”

He turned, smiling, “Will you ever start calling me Simon again?”

Inara smiled back, “That is…difficult for me now.”

He shook his head in mock consternation. After a second he stopped and looked at her intently. His voice became softer, but very serious. “So tell me, really, how have you been feeling lately?”

“Good. Very good, actually.” She forced herself to laugh. “If I didn’t know something was wrong with me, I would never have been able to tell it.”

“Well, I’m going to do everything I can. You know that.”

She answered, “I do know that.”

After a moment, with difficulty, he said, “Would you ever have dreamed we’d end up out here? Both of us? When I think back…”

“I try not to.” She did not like thinking about the past.

She continued, though, in a moment. “We’re doing what we have to. You especially…Simon.” He looked away as she added, “I’ll admit it, you aren’t really what one thinks of when you hear the word ‘outlaw,’ but you make a good one.”

“I’m not an outlaw,” he said, “no matter what they called me on those waves. And I’m not a hard-boiled rogue or some scheming terrorist who raids hospitals. I just had to get my sister out of that place.”