simon_doctor | (no subject)

(no subject)

[After this.]

He reads through the personal ones first, sitting at the small writing desk in his bunk. Skims them, really: the letter from Dunash, the formal but (he feels) sincere note from one of the head doctors from his residency, the worryingly few words of congratulation from Liz. He'll want to reread those later, in all likelihood, taking more time.

Second, he turns his attention to the stack of letters to River.

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You don't have to knock on the door of your own room.

Her hair is pulled back; there's a splash of white paint on the left leg of her coverall, just above the knee. The sleeves are tied around her waist.

As the door slides open, she sighs, quietly.

And closes the door behind her.

And that's when she looks up, and isn't that interesting -- it's still early, and Simon...doesn't have the door cracked open, at least a little.

"Hey." Quiet. Still by the door. "Am I interruptin' anything?"

"Hey." He turns to look up at her, with a small smile. "No, I wanted to show this to you. Come over here?"

The question is what he wouldn't be bringing out to show her.

She crosses to him, resting a hand on the back of his chair, expression a silent question.

"I saw Dad at Milliways a few hours ago. He brought ... these."

He fans out the papers on the desk with one hand.

"Letters. That came to us care of his office."

"I'm guessin' they're not all from debutantes?" She's smiling.

"I believe Dad's staff weeded out most of those."

His own smile is sardonic, but still there.

"So how'd he take knowin' his eldest is in high demand like this?"

Dry: "Oh, he's as amused as everybody else."

Simon is still persistently unamused by the whole thing.

She moves her hand from the chair back to his shoulder, and squeezes. "Nothin' there's not true except you're available, right?"

He pauses, and says carefully: "Some of it's ... overstated. Or misleading. Or poorly put. But ... no, none of it's actually false."

Beat.

"Except the part about being a bachelor."

"Well." A small, vaguely impish grin. "After you're through here...reckon you can work on a correction letter, maybe." Kaylee nods to the letters. "But that means gettin' through here."

"Yes." He picks up one of the clipped-together sheafs of paper.

"These are the ones that were sent to River. I want to read through them before I pass them on to her."

Back into the land of not quite so funny.

Kaylee nods. "Makes sense."

It's hard to put words to, but Kaylee feels, obscurely, that this is...strictly Simon's business, to share or not. It's not that life before Serenity is a giant mystery to be unraveled. It's more that the two of them came on board as travelers, almost out of nowhere, and asking about what came before is kind of like asking questions about Mal's past: you just don't do it. Mostly because it wouldn't exactly be tactful.

And now that it's almost -- almost -- safe to ask questions...she's leery. This is his business. He doesn't read the letters from her parents unless she offers. It's the same kind of thing.

He studies her for a moment, and speaks; a little tentatively, but only a little.

"Do you ... would you want to help me go through them? I, I just want to make sure ... I don't want to give her anything that'll upset her."

"Yeah." Quiet. "If you want me to -- "

"Yeah."

Simon knows better than Kaylee what might upset River.

This is a show of trust, and one that surprises her, a little.

He unclips the papers, divides the stack into two roughly equal stacks, and passes one of them to Kaylee.

"None of these were from names Dad recognized," he adds.

She takes them, and settles on the floor beside the bed, back against the post.

(Sometimes you just want a change of scenery. Especially when doing otherwise would involve taking off your boots.)

"...meanin' he did recognize some?"

"A few that came for me, yes."

He's studying the page before him.

"I can show you those afterwards, if you'd like."

"If you want to."

She's looking at the first page without seeing it.

Softly: "I think I do."

He looks up, trying to catch her eyes.

It works.

A smile. A we're okay kind of smile.

He returns the smile. Can't not.

But as his gaze falls back to the page in front of him, he says -- still soft, and a little blank -- "This is so strange."

"What is?" She's sitting crosslegged, the papers in her lap, her hands resting on her knees.

"All of this. I never...."

One hand lifts and drops in a vaguely helpless gesture, and he tries again. "I wasn't sure clearing our names would ever be possible. I'd hoped, but ... I never thought we'd go from being wanted fugitives to, to being celebrities."

Raw incredulity on that last word.

"It's...a hell of a shift." Quiet. Matter-of-fact. "And it's gonna take gettin' used to. Like -- " Her smile is sudden, and a little rueful. "Like bein' here did."