Coreplot: Traveling Doctor

[simon_doctor]

The building they've arranged to use for the clinic today is several miles out of town, at the end of a wide dirt road. It's courtesy to call it a building, really -- one room, dirt floor dusted with wisps of hay, walls made of weathered wooden boards, roof falling in at one end -- but it serves their temporary needs. A clean sterile sheet turns the central block into a makeshift examining table, sufficient for the level of work he's got today: a handful of patients, starting with the teenage daughter of the building's owner. Simon re-sets her broken arm, and gives her a decent cast and a small supply of non-addicting painkillers; she gives him a sweet, grateful smile and the purse with the agreed-upon payment.

On a planet this well settled, the only reason anyone would pay for a traveling doctor ... would be an unwillingness to go to a hospital. Hospitals tend to have Alliance presence, and security feeds, and requirements like legal identification. From what he sees of the few other patients -- a rawboned woman with a badly infected knife wound across one shoulder; a pair of heavily tattooed young men, one with a wheezing rattle in his lungs and a low-grade fever -- Simon suspects they may have reason to want to avoid that level of attention.

Which is just as well; so does he.

The work's done by this time, and the patients have gone. Sunlight sifts golden through the missing part of the roof, and Simon is packing up the last of his equipment.

Comments

[river_meimei]

River hovers at Simon's shoulder as he gathers bandages and bottles. She's tense, as she has been for hours, sending him uneasy hurry-up glances even as she slows him down by getting in his way without realizing it.

She's never still; her hands twitch, and she darts restless glances at dark corners, at the ceiling, at the door and at every shadow.

[simon_doctor]

Simon's not following her glances anymore. They've been going on all day.

Right now he's focused on getting the last of his supplies into the carrying case, and making sure no trace of their brief presence here remains; they may want to use this place again sometime.

[river_meimei]

"Rats in the shadows."

River stoops, sudden and jerky, and picks up a discarded syringe cap. She rises slowly, rolling it between her fingers as she casts jittery looks at the corners.

"Time to go. Simon. Time to redirect."

Her head lifts sharply, and her face twists in fretful confusion. "I can hear them squeak."

[simon_doctor]

"Shh. We're going soon," he soothes, taking the syringe cap out of her hand and tucking it absently into a pocket. "Mal should be driving out to pick us up in about..." He glances at the time, and frowns. "About fifteen minutes. That's a long while to wait around here."

Simon glances out the window. This part of Beaumonde's in early spring today, brisk and pleasant, and the dirt road that leads to the city is broad and empty in the sunlight.

"Do you want to walk out to meet him?"

[river_meimei]

River shakes her head, and then nods.

[simon_doctor]

"River..."

He reaches to touch her shoulder with one hand.

"What is it?"

[river_meimei]

River casts him a helpless glance, before something off in an empty corner catches her attention again.

"Time to go," she repeats.

One hand comes up to clutch at her temple, rake back her hair. "Don't. The road's upside down, and--" Her hand falls, fingers stiff in the air. "I don't know. I don't know. Simon. Watch the rats. They're inside the walls."

[simon_doctor]

This time Simon does follow her glance, and sees nothing. And wonders distractedly if it's really that simple, if she's talking about literal rats in the literal walls. It's entirely possible; this was once a barn or a stable or some such thing, there could easily be rats.

"Inside the walls," he repeats cautiously. "Do you want to go outside, then?"

[river_meimei]

River's shoulders hunch in what might be a shrug, distracted and uneven.

[simon_doctor]

"...All right." He sighs, and takes her hand. "Come on. We'll go for a walk. It's nice out."

Slowly he chivvies her towards the door, casting a last look around the empty room to make sure they haven't left anything.

[river_meimei]

River follows his lead, tense and distracted. Her fingers twitch slightly against Simon's palm.

[simon_doctor]

He pushes the wooden door open with his free hand, and the two emerge from the old barn into bright dappled sunlight.

It's quiet, this far from the city; the only sound is the rushing of the wind through the trees, tossing their myriads of leaves.

[walk_ins]

And the road is pleasant enough, isn't it. Tree-lined. Big, tall trees -- almost a forest.

One tree back, someone is watching.

Two trees back, and all along, more people are waiting.

[river_meimei]

"The leaves are falling," River mutters.

They're not. It's a lovely spring day, and everything is green and growing.

And then her head jerks up, her eyes widening, and her mouth opens--

[simon_doctor]

"River?"

It's so small that fully three seconds pass before he sees it: a little black dart sticking out of his sister's neck.

Such a small thing.



Such a huge thing.

[river_meimei]

There's no stumbling, no sound, no time to run, no time for words.

Just this: River is standing, and then she's falling.

And then she's just a crumpled heap on the ground, limp and utterly motionless.

[simon_doctor]

"RIVER!"

Simon's down beside her in less than a blink, pulling out the dart -- his fingers don't shake, not now, they can't afford to --

He lifts her halfway up, her head sagging forward onto his shoulder; her entire body feels horribly loose now, boneless. His eyes scan the bright sunny road, the expanse of trees that looks so empty -- and where no birds sing.

"Who are you?" His voice is a scream, scraping his throat raw. "WHO SHOT MY SISTER?"

[walk_ins]

Birdy, birdy, in the sky.

Across the way:

Fsst.

Nobody is there to pull the dart from Simon.

[simon_doctor]

He jerks back at the sting in his neck, up on his knees, still clutching River to him.

And then slowly collapses over her, the two of them forming a single limp heap on the dirt road.

[walk_ins]

They move out of the trees with no grace at all -- twenty of them.

One of them lifts his wrist to his mouth, and speaks a quiet word.

Ten seconds later, a sleek small shuttle -- more long than wide -- is visible coming from the north.

Twenty seconds later, they've got the targets untangled and stretched out.

[badinlatin]

Mal crests a hill heading toward the rendezvous point previously arranged with Simon, making good time on a mule recently beaten back into good repair.

It's then he sees the bodies, and slams the mule into its highest setting, barrelling down toward a shuttle he already knows could outpace him without trying.

Do you know what it is you're carrying?

The mule feels ready to break apart - not meant to run with five, not meant to run this speed.

[walk_ins]

The thing about meaning is that it's subjective. There's nothing with any intrinsic meaning.

Meaning is as ephemeral (and what a nice word that is) as the presence of two fugitives on a Firefly-class transport.

Here today, gone tomorrow.

The targets have been loaded into the back; the last two rangers jump in, and close up.

The shuttle takes off, and gains speed.

[badinlatin]

Mal unholstered his gun, panting from the adrenaline shifting through him at the sight of the shuttle speeding away.

Mal's had nightmares like this, on several levels. Simon and River getting taken. Mal moving too slow to change whatever bad is coming at him next.

Always the over-achiever, killing two birds with one stone

Mal reholsters his gun when he makes it to the point where Simon and River's bodies had lain, watching the shuttle become a flicker ahead of him as he pulled out his comm, screaming.

"WASH! Ma shong, they're gone --- "