Work Text:
When the truth about Miranda is revealed, Dr. Julian Bashir is working at a hospital in Paquin, one of the moons of Athens. He isn't one for fancy hospitals, which is why he's on the frontier now, doing what he can. It's also why he'd turned down the offer from the government to come work for them on a secret project. He's glad now—so very glad—that he did.
He's trying to undo some of the damage from an infection of a bullet wound that should have been seen to weeks ago, bemoaning the fact that as hard as he tries, there's not enough of him to do what needs to be done, when a man in a suit walks in. "I'm sorry," Julian says, registering the presence of an additional person in the room but not looking up. "I'm afraid I'm busy, and there's absolutely no way I can fit you in. I'm sorry, I really am."
"I think you're mistaking me for someone I'm not," says the man, painfully calm, and Julian knows that he should probably look up, except he has a patient right now, and that has to come first.
"If you'll wait in the hallway, I'll be with you as soon as I can," he says, because there isn't a waiting room in this hospital, same way there are only a quarter of all the supplies Julian would need to do his job decently. The man leaves, and Julian continues to work on his patient, only briefly thinking on the oddity of having a visitor.
Julian finishes the cleaning of the hole where he'd had to extract the bullet from, and he knows the patient is lucky the shot was as clean as it had been, or there would have been no way Julian could have done anything at all to help. Dropping the bloodied plastic gloves he was wearing into a plastic bag, which is sealed and tossed into a covered garbage can, Julian glances at his sedated patient, and heads for the door.
"Dr. Bashir," says the man who had tried to interrupt him, and now that Julian has a better look it's clear just how much he doesn't belong on this world. The suit isn't just a suit, it's an obviously high-quality suit. Which Julian wouldn't usually have picked up on, but one of his few friends on this world is a tailor.
"I mostly just go by Julian now," he says.
"The question is...why? You could have had any one of a number of fine positions on one of the core planets, doing research, really helping people, but instead, Dr. Bashir, you chose a little backworld, and spend time cleaning bullet wounds, half of which have to be well-deserved bullet wounds."
Julian winces, at the statement rather than at the fact that this man knows who is. He isn't exactly trying to hide out here. "It's my place to heal wounds, not pass judgment on their owners. But in answer to your question, rather than your insult, maybe I was wrong. I thought I would be able to do more to help if I was on the frontier, with real people. I think, though, that I've been disappointed."
The man in the suit, and Julian can't help noticing that although he's always using his name, the man never got around to introducing himself, looks sympathetic. "Are you ready to rejoin civilization?" he asks.
"What?"
"I have a job offer for you, if you're interested, Dr. Bashir."
Julian looks like he wasn't expecting this, but he doesn't have to think about his answer. "No."
"I assure you, this has nothing to—"
"I don't want your assurances," Julian says. "You're with the government, right?" The man in the suit nods. "You haven't really painted a very pretty picture of yourselves recently, and I don't want to be a part of that. Didn't before, really don't now. So if you'll excuse me, I have an overfilled hospital, and not nearly enough hours left in the day."
"You won't be doing this for me—"
"You're right. I certainly will not be."
"But surely you'll consider it for the children."
Julian is too shocked at his gall to say anything at all in response to that.
"Being in the medical community, even as far out as here, you have to have heard rumors about some of the research that took place at the core."
Julian wishes that it wouldn't be incredibly unhygienic for him to spit at the man. Sure, he's heard the rumors, but he grew up on Bellerophon, and had a healthy respect for the Alliance carved into him as a child. But this? This is confirmation of a sort far worse than Miranda, because it means that Miranda wasn't an isolated event. "I did. Didn't believe them until a moment ago, though."
"But now you know that the government was using children, and trying to get psychics out of the deal."
"I'd heard something along those lines, yes," Julian says.
The man closes his eyes briefly, then opens them and looks startled to see Julian still standing there. "But now they have a problem. They know that public opinion will turn vehemently against them if this leaks, but they can't just...dispose of the children. Too many of them come from families high up in the social sphere." The man looks like he's in pain. "They said...it would be a special school. For the especially brilliant and naturally gifted. And they were believed. Until recently, I believed them. My son," he adds, without prompting.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be," the man says. "Just fix it."
"Excuse me?" Julian fails to see how those two thoughts are connected.
"Maybe half the children can currently engage in a semi-normal conversation, the other ones just bounce around from subject to a literary discussion to some perceived insight into the current political situation, and there's no way to tell which one they're on. It's difficult to explain, but as soon as you start to talk to them, it's clear that nothing is right. I was hoping, and most of the government brass agreed with me, for the sake of political expediency, that you'd be willing to work with the children and do your best to fix what's been broken. I can promise you a fairly free hand in their treatment, but obviously the faster you can get this done the faster the majority of the families the children came from can get back to pretending everything is alright."
Julian thinks that maybe the man is forgetting what he's supposed to convince the doctor of. Or maybe he knows what he's doing, because Julian knows now what his answer is going to be. "Why doesn't the doctor who 'programmed' them in the first place do that?" he asks, glancing at his watch to see how behind he's getting on his hospital duties now.
"He was executed."
"Oh," Julian says. "Tiān a."
"Yeah. So I understand that you want some time to think about it."
"No, that's not necessary. I just need time to wrap things up here."
"How much time?"
"I don't know. A week?"
"There's a gunship waiting that will transfer you to the next ship heading to Epiphron as soon as you're ready."
Epiphron is one of those worlds on the cusp between the core and the border planets: government-loyal with few of the luxuries. When Julian thinks about it, it's the perfect place to hide a bunch of children who are going to be forced to become assassins. "Will do. I hope...that I can help your son," he says, because he's pretty sure it's the polite way to end a conversation like this one, and he needs to get back to work.
***
Julian's been on Epiphron three days now, and he's already getting less sleep now than he did on Paquin. On Paquin, sometimes he'd be forced to stop his work due to a lack of supplies, but that isn't the case now. And Julian's never been good at self-imposing limits.
Julian runs a hand through his hair, and looks at the fifteen year-old seated across from him. He's been through the files, but the doctors who performed these surgeries weren't just sadists, they were fairly incompetent. The government may have created weapons out of people, but not controllable ones, and Julian hasn't yet decided if that makes it easier or harder to turn those weapons back into people. Right now he's trying to set up a psychological triage, to determine how many of the children can get by without surgery. And once he's done that, he can figure out how one goes about doing surgery to replace parts of brain that have been removed. It's...barbaric, and it's the reason he told every last one of the people who had been involved in the original procedures to make a report and then he fired them. It had been a test of just how much flexibility the government had given him, and he knows it was the right thing to do, but now he's trying to do psychological examinations, when he should be having a psychologist do it. "Do you miss your family?" he asks Kemen, the boy seated across from him.
"It's a problem. Will you send me back if I say yes?" Kemen says.
"Maybe," Julian says, smiling at Kemen. He's relieved...because the reports he was given about the children don't say anything meaningful about their basic ability to function. Kemen's report has a note that says his training went slowly, and with a number of obstacles that had to be overcome, so Julian is surprised that the boy is doing so well. There's no system he can figure out for the coherency of the patient, so he counts it as a blessing every time he understands something the children say to him.
"And if I say no? Will it be made clear that I'm not a person anymore, meant to go to school and to learn and live a normal life, with friends?"
"If you don't want to go back to your family, I won't make you. But I won't make you stay here either."
"Will you cast me into the wind then, like a dandelion seed, make a wish and hope I grow into a tree?" Kemen asks.
Julian smiles at the mixed metaphor. It's an apt one. "I don't know," he says. "I think you'd probably stay here for a while longer. You're young, but you're brilliant. You'll be a tree," he assures Kemen, "But not until you're ready. So do you want to answer yes or no to the first question?"
Kemen considers for a second. "No. I sent them letters, but they answered with grapes."
"Alright. If you change your mind..."
"I won't."
"What subject were you interested in before you were moved here?" Julian asks, now that the formalities are over.
"It was biology, but now I don't think that's appropriate."
"Oh. I was a fan of biology. Well, obviously. What's wrong with it now?"
"It just seems that psychology would serve better. At least it would serve you better." Kemen sticks his tongue out at Julian, who laughs as he realizes the boy is just pulling his leg.
"So you'd be interested in resuming those studies if I can find you a teacher?" Julian says.
"Yes, I would be. Thank you."
Julian studies the boy, trying to figure out which group to put him in. A large part of the "programming" was made easier by keeping the young men and women isolated, and now Julian has to re-acclimate them to social interactions. "You're going to move from your room to one you'll share with five others," he says, and this is one of those moments when Julian is reminded that his patients are children and that he's more than a doctor. "Nurse Yasu will show you the way and explain the changes to the rules." The short of it is simply that everyone has much more freedom than they ever did before, including the freedom to leave. None of the other staff are happy about that, but Julian insisted on it. "I'm going to talk to you again in two days. But if you have any questions between now and then, I'll make time for you. Do you have any now?"
Kemen shakes his head. "See you on Thursday," he says, standing up to leave.
"Yeah, unless he falls over from exhaustion first," mutters the nurse who enters as she collects Kemen, exchanging him for a girl of eleven Nurse Yasu directs to the chair.
"Good afternoon Shui," Julian says. "I'm—"
"Not ready to defend your name from what's coming," Shui says, the words of menace sounding odd coming from someone with her hair done up in pigtails.
"I was going to say 'pleased to meet you,' but I guess they're both true. Do you know who I am?"
"Dr. Julian Subatoi Bashir. Graduated top of your class and courted by every place that thought they could afford you. They offered you laurels and ivy, but you took what? Poppies?"
"I don't remember," Julian tells Shui.
"And now you end with roses."
"That's the plan," he says, not understanding all the implications of this analogy, but he thinks he understands enough to agree with it. Few of these children are actually that badly broken, they just think differently, and Julian's mind is adjusting to it.
"Am I a rose?" Shui asks.
"Do you like roses?" Julian asks without answering Shui's question.
"Sometimes they smell nice and look pretty. But then other times they have more thorns than petals."
"Do you like botany?"
Shui makes a face. "Too many names all referring to the same set of ideas. No thank you. But then, maybe I don't know what I like. I'd make a good teacher, I think, if it weren't for the fact that all the students are gone."
Julian smiles at her gently. "You have a fair amount of time to make up your mind. And perhaps the students will return by then."
"Hopefully," Shui agrees. "You want me to leave now?"
"Well, to be moved into the new room you'll share with some of other girls, yes. But I'll talk to you again soon. Maybe then you'll be able to tell me if you think you're a rose or not."
Yasu escorts Shui out of the room, and, instead of bringing Julian another child, sets a cup of coffee on his desk. When Julian looks like he's going to object, she shakes her head at him. "Take five minutes. Trust me, they'll help."
"Yes Doctor," Julian says, sipping the coffee without giving it a chance to cool at all.
***
It's been three months since Julian accepted the job offer, and he's watching some of the children play Entanglement—one of the many games invented by the children which make Julian feel exhausted just seeing them play it—as he talks to Shui. "How are you doing?" Julian asks.
"I think I'm alright. My father visited me yesterday. I don't think he knows what to do with me. Or maybe he never thought of me as a person, more of an idea of a daughter, and now he's beginning to cope with the fact that I am a person. Or a flower. Like a peony. It's hard for him."
"Is it hard for you?"
"It probably should be, but it's not. I feel...like moss after a rainfall. Like a garden in bloom. It was wonderful to see him again."
Julian is about to respond when an alarm goes off. His head whips around to face the door, as two security guards come running in. Seeing their alarm, he forces himself to put on a calm face. "I'm going to go deal with an issue, but I'd like to resume this at some later time. And Shui—your father is welcome to visit whenever his schedule permits it."
Shui smiles. "Thank you."
Julian nods acknowledgment, and leaves the room, with the guards on his heel. In the hallway, he stops and demands an explanation from them.
"The alarm is an intruder warning. We have unauthorized personnel on the premises," the taller security guard says.
"Do you know where they are?" Julian asks.
"No," answers the other security guard.
"Well, when you find them notify me. I'll be in my office."
Julian enters his office to find three people waiting for him in it. He glances at the door and finds it blocked, so he starts talking. "I'm sorry, can I help you?" he asks, glancing warily between the brown coat of one of the two men and that man's gun. "I'm afraid I only have two chairs," Julian says, dragging the one behind his desk around, perfectly aware that he's babbling, but there is something distinctly menacing about this situation. "But I can call for a third." Julian perches on the edge of his desk in a studiously non-threatening manner.
"Please don't," says the brown-coated man.
The girl, somewhere around the age of seventeen, with stringy black hair, tilts her head as she regards him.
"I'm Dr. Julian Bashir," Julian says after an awkward pause. "If you can tell me what it is I can help you with—"
Even though he sees the younger man step towards him, Julian isn't expecting to get punched, and is nearly knocked off the desk by the blow. His hand goes up to one eye and the uninjured one dances even more warily between the man, the gun, and the door. "Wúnéug de rén," the man who punched Julian mutters.
"You'll have to forgive the boy's manners," the one wearing the brown coat, and Julian is helpless to notice any details but that one, says. "He's just a little upset, on account of you being responsible for breaking his sister."
"I—What?"
"He didn't do it," the girl whispers. "Too busy forgetting what he never knew."
"This your sister?" Julian asks, nodding towards the girl. "Because I don't think I've ever seen her before."
"This is River. River Tam."
"I don't recognize the name either."
"She was a subject here," the brother says, his voice dripping with derision. Julian supposes he should consider himself lucky that he's only been punched once so far. "Perhaps you knew her by a number instead."
"Then it must have been before my time," Julian snaps, "Because I wasn't involved with any of the huāngmiù gôu pì experiments that went on, and I'd thank you not to accuse me of such duò luò actions. Ever again."
"Did I hit a nerve?"
Julian isn't sure how to respond to that, so he turns to looks at the one person in the room who hasn't threatened him yet. She also happens to be the only person he has a name for. "What do they want with me?" he asks River. "Vengeance?"
"You're not what they're looking for," River responds.
"Probably no one is. If they're searching for someone to take responsibility for what has been done to you, I'm afraid I don't have any suggestions for them." With this, Julian turns to the other two. "I'm afraid I can't help you, but if you come up with something, you're welcome to make an appointment for some later date." Julian stands up, hoping that these people will agree to leave and he can have the security guards escort them out. He needs to get back to the group of children so they don't get worried, and because he thinks he's been making significant progress with Shui.
"Sit down." the man in the brown coat orders, and Julian obeys, positioning himself back on the edge of his desk. "Now I don't know what kind of dà shǎguā ideas you've gotten in your head, but I am not your enemy. Simon may sometimes be a little overzealous in protecting his sister, but none of us are focused on any cánbào notion of revenge. We're here because we can't keep letting the Alliance get away with messing with children's minds."
Julian winces at the subtle confirmation of what he already knew—that the man in front of him is an independent. He would have thought that serving as a doctor on one of the outer planets would have made him used to the idea, but, fresh out of medical school, one of his first positions had been on one of the medical ships assigned post-Battle of Serenity Valley, and there are some things he can't forget. "I'm not messing with anyone's brain."
"And I'm sure you'll understand why I can't just trust you on that one," Simon says, still obviously irritated with Julian.
"Then you'll understand why I'm not going to go to any efforts to prove it to you," Julian says, wondering desperately where the security guards have gone to. "You have no connections to any of the current children, you've done nothing but threaten me, and he has a gun."
"I have a name," the browncoat says.
"Not one you've shared with me."
"Mal."
"Fine. Mal has a gun, and I'm not feeling very comfortable about that fact."
There's a knock at the door, and Julian's heart sinks, since the security guards tend not to knock. "Sorry. I'm busy," he shouts out.
"Oh, good, because I want to talk to your visitors," Shui says, pushing open the door and entering. To Julian's surprise, Simon watches the girl for a second and then gives Julian a knowing gaze and a suddenly sympathetic smile.
"I'm not going to do anything yúchǔn," Mal promises, for whatever that's worth to Julian, which isn't very much, but he'll not and smile it it'll keep Shui safe.
"But my presence proves his claim. Are you going to help her like the rest of us?" Shui asks, pointing at River.
"She doesn't need my help."
"Probably not, no, I guess. But you could use his. The brother's."
"I'm sorry, I don't know what she means," Julian tells Simon. "But now that I've proven what you wanted me to, you're all free to leave. At any time."
River shakes her head, and her eyes focus on Shui. "Technically you've been pardoned," she says to her brother without turning to look at him.
"Pardoned?" Julian repeats, thinking at first that the words are meant for him, and that doesn't make sense. But at Simon's grimace he catches on. "I suppose this shouldn't surprise me."
"No, probably not," Mal says. "I'm not seeing how this is quite relevant though, yòuzhì xìntiānwēng," he directs at River.
"They're both doctors," River says.
"So are lots of other people," Julian responds.
"But you could use someone to help you out. And Simon would prefer the stability of a regular gravitational field."
"Now sì gāng yī zāotà miǎo," Mal demands. "You can't just give up my medic like that. For one, I doubt Kaylee would allow it."
River shrugs. "Times are changing. We have to keep up with them. You've been looking for a cause since you lost the war, Captain, but as soon as you find it all that comes to mind are excuses. But that doesn't mean you can make that same choice for Simon." River dismisses Mal, and turns to focus on her brother. "Simon. Remember, you came here to help? Like with me. And you can, but it's less a matter of letting the birds fly free, and instead a problem of figuring out how to clip their wings so they don't fly into a spaceship motor."
Julian sighs, because he understands perfectly what River is trying to say, and from the look in her eyes, so does Shui. And she's nodding at him, asking him to say something supportive. Julian doesn't know if it's supportive or not, but he knows what to say, so he nods back. "What were you planning to do, with the children? Assuming the plan had gone well and you'd stopped what was happening? There are forty-seven young men and women here between the ages of nine and nineteen. You hadn't intended to take them all with you, had you?" Julian is aware that he isn't sounding very rational, but that's because he's not feeling terribly rational. He's angry, because he's been on this world, trying to help, and with no way to lash out at the people actually responsible, for longer than he can keep things bottled up, and then these people charge in and blockade him into his office and hold him responsible.
"No, of course not," Simon says. "I fully intended to return them to their families."
Julian isn't expecting that, maybe because he hasn't been that naïve for a long time. "Would you go back to your parents?" he asks, and it's Simon's turn to be taken aback. "Would they take you back?" Julian adds, his tone only a little gentler.
"No. I see. So, what are you doing here?"
"I think that I might take you up on that offer of a chair," Mal says, finally sitting down. Julian wonders briefly why the security guards still haven't shown up, or why Mal's even here since he's bored so easily, but this situation feels too normal for him to stay worried for too long.
Julian waits for a second to see if anyone else wants something before he starts in on his explanation. "I don't know how much you've learned from spending time with your sister, or what kind of equipment you've had, but a simple brain scan reveals what's wrong. Unfortunately from what I've been able to tell there's no easy way to fix it. Messing with people's emotions has always been tricky, and I'm afraid that anything I do could make it worse. There are definitely some drugs that help, though the difficulty there is convincing the children that I don't have any intention of hurting them. The most pressing issue that I see is getting rid of the triggers that some of the doctors' notes make reference to. Fortunately they seem to have been all psychologically ingrained, which will make them easier to remove. Or it would, if I knew where to find a psychologist who could help."
Julian pauses, glances at Shui, wondering if he should ask her to leave before he gets any further, but figures he's too far into the conversation, and these are all probably things she's picked up already. "A total of eight of the parents have come to visit, despite me extending the invitation nearly two and a half months ago. I've only a further sixteen queries sent about how the parent's son or daughter is doing, to which I'm only allowed to respond 'bùlài'. Most of my concentration is being spent right now figuring out how much longer I can say I'm cleaning up the mess before the Alliance starts to wonder, and how I can go about finding funding for an actual private academy, to turn the lie into a reality. Because none of these children were truly happy at normal schools."
Julian has finally run out of explanation, which means there's only one thing left to say. "I don't know who you are, or your qualifications, but Shui seems to think you can help."
"I was a surgeon. On Osiris. But I don't see how that'd be particularly helpful."
"Neither do I." Julian shrugs. "But you're a doctor, which is more helpful than nothing, and there's certainly enough work to do. It's up to you, but if you want a job you're welcome to it. Not that it will pay well, I'm afraid."
Simon glances at Mal, seeking some kind of sign from Mal that it would be alright if he stays here for a while. This sounds like something he'd have liked to do, even before he was wrapped up with River. And staying here with other children like her might be good for his sister. "Yes," Simon says. "Yes, I'd like to do whatever I can to help."
"Oh." Julian is surprised to find that he feels relieved, but he likes the thought of someone else taking on some of the responsibility. "Good."
***
Having been planet-bound for six weeks, Simon is surprised by how much he misses the Serenity. Not just Kaylee, or Inara or Mal or Zoe, but the ship herself. It's strange, because a year ago Simon couldn't have imagined a path to where he is now. But River seems happy here, and Simon is able to apply some of what he's learned from working with her to help others.
There's a knock at his office door, and Simon sets down the sheet of paper he isn't really paying attention to anyway. "Come in," he says. "Julian?"
Julian pauses at the door. "Serenity sent word that it's headed our way." His face is unreadable. "I thought you might appreciate knowing."
"I do. Thank you." Julian doesn't leave. "Is there something else?" Simon asks.
The other doctor nods. "A member of parliament is coming in sometime today or tomorrow, whenever her busy schedule can allow it, to check up on my progress. For all that you're not a wanted fugitive anymore, it might be best if you and your sister don't make an issue out of your presence. Or the Serenity's, if it's still around."
Simon agrees, and Julian leaves as Simon wonders what he's doing. He feels like a part of the cover-up, and he wishes this situation was less morally ambiguous. Most of the time he recognizes that he's helping, but there are other days he can't get over the fact that he's working in the system that created the problem. When he was on the run with River, everything was simpler; he was just fulfilling a duty to protect his younger sister. These days, Simon just feels like a hégànzhě, and he knows visits from the Serenity crew aren't going to help at all.
***
River says he's dancing, but Kemen doesn't know what that means, except that it feels like he's taking more steps backward than forward, and it's not very much fun. He tells River this, and she laughs. "You're not doing it right," she says, and grabs his hand to teach him.
Soon they're spinning around, and Kemen wonders if he's going to throw up, because he knows that's a worry when people start to spin, but he doesn't. Instead, when River lets him go, lost in the blur of her own movement, he's grinning as wide as he can.
River continues to dance, and there's a crowd clustering around her now. The moment lasts for several minutes, before River abruptly stops and glares at everyone. "Maybe if the music was louder," she mutters, and stalks off.
***
Julian is saying what he thinks are all the right words, but the member of parliament seems less than pleased. He isn't surprised though, he never expected this to go well. On the other hand, at least it isn't going worse. The children are on their best behavior, studying quietly in pairs or small groups. "Is something the problem, yǒulǐmào chēnghū?" Julian asks.
"No," she says, but she isn't very convincing.
"I've encountered a number of difficulties," Julian mentions, trying to tread the fine line between coming off as unnecessary and appearing incompetent. "Primary among them trying to convince the children that I'm not going to hurt them." The reproach in his voice isn't very subtle. There's a reason Julian never went into politics.
"You're connecting to them now though, right?"
Her words unsettle Julian. "Yes, yes I am."
"Good." There's only so much Julian can say to that, so he continues on the tour of what he's done with the facilities without further comment. There's not a doubt in his mind as to why the government gave up the project they were doing here; it has nothing to do with humanitarian concerns. He's not happy with that fact, but he's spent most of his life learning to do the best with non-optimal circumstances.
He leads Ms. Isai, reminding himself that she's the official representative of his government, through another classroom (Julian thinks this used to be the place where they kept Emily, attached to the chair while they monitored life-signs and checked if the training—brainwashing—reprogramming—was going well, but he does his best to remember that it's a classroom now), into what could be the inside of a ship, at least that what it looks like to Julian. But he's used to working with technology, rather than fully understanding it. "What's this?" she asks.
"A project that a few of the children are working on," Julian answers, and he's more than a little nervous at the sudden interest of Ms. Isai. As well as by the fact that he doesn't have an honest answer to give her. "I think they're experimenting with capturing elastic potential energy. Either that or creating the best bouncy-ball ever." He shrugs and smiles, but there's a lack of reciprocation.
***
The Serenity takes the long way to Epiphron, and manages to avoid running into the elegant Alliance ship which lifts off to return Ms. Isai, MP, to Londinium. Kaylee is practically bouncing off the walls, and the ship jolts a little as it touches ground. Mal's good enough at handling the ship, but he doesn't have the natural instinct for it the way River does. Or Wash did.
Mal's not sure what he thinks about having lost his medic. He hadn't pictured the doctor going to work with the Alliance so soon, not after what they did to his sister. But the doctor says he knows what he's doing, and none of the crew's been injured beyond Mal's ability to take care of it, so Mal isn't planning on saying anything about it.
Kaylee has enlisted Jayne to help her carry some of the bits of junk she's picked up during their travels, since she can't manage it all on her own. The other doctor, Julian, says he's appreciative of them, but Mal can't figure on why anyone would want old mule bits or pieces from a feeding trough. He figures Simon just came up with something to make Kaylee a little less upset.
Kaylee nearly drops her share of the load when she sees Simon, and the two are quickly in each other's arms, with the junk not terribly gracefully set on the ground. "How are you?" Kaylee asks, after their greeting, as the doctor bends over to pick up what she'd set down.
"I'm good," Simon says.
"Shiny!" Kaylee interrupts, before Simon gets to mentioning his sister. Someone, Kaylee figures, has to worry about him, rather than letting him worry about everyone else. Besides, she can just ask River herself when she sees the teenager.
***
Julian is looking for Arelle, so he can give the nineteen-year-old a letter and talk to him some about whether Arelle wants to start to think about leaving for an institute of higher education. Kemen thinks he saw the other boy in the "playground," the jumble of wires and rubber which had fascinated the parliamentary representative. As he enters the room, Julian sees Kaylee, rather than Arelle. "What do you think it is?" he asks the mechanic.
Kaylee drops her fascinated gaze from the structure to make eye contact. "You don't know?"
Julian smiles ruefully. "This just looks like a lot of mess to me," he admits. "I'm a doctor, not an engineer. I've tried asking, but I can't get an answer that makes much sense."
Kaylee shrugs. "I can't make much sense of it. I mean, it's obviously ain't finished yet, but why put that piece there?" She points out the part she's talking about, but it's not like Julian can answer any of her questions. "Well, I brought them some more pieces. It's not much, certainly nothing valuable, but—"
"Thank you," Julian says.
"Whatever they're making, it's complex wiring," Kaylee offers. "It looks simple, but it really ain't. See that there?" She points out some parts of the circuit, and Julian nods politely, not knowing what she's pointing at.
Julian thanks her and as soon as he can politely excuse himself he leaves to continue his search for Arelle, wondering in what context the Firefly's mechanic's comments can be interpreted.
***
Jayne hates hospitals, and he doesn't much care for children neither. He's glad the doctor and his sister are off the ship, but not as happy as he would be if the crew didn't have to ruttin' visit them every month and a half. But the cap'n's made his mind up, and Jayne can't make his opinion on how they'd be much better off doing work and getting paid be known, or at least listened to.
Now he's stomping through the hallways and feeling sorry that he offered to help Kaylee carry her gorram space junk. If he hadn't, he could have stayed behind on the ship with Zoe. Not that that would have been fun but it would be more so than this.
There's a kid walking along behind him, and Jayne is tempted to turn around and do something, but he's been firmly instructed to stay out of trouble. But the kid keeps walking behind him, neither passing nor dropping back when Jayne speeds up.
Jayne's just walking around in circles, and he's bored, so he stops abruptly and leans against the wall. "What do you want?" he demands.
"To be able to launch a small projectile very quickly," the boy replies, not seeming remotely threatened by Jayne. Jayne remembers some of the things River can do, and wonders if maybe he's the one who should feel threatened.
Jayne grunts. "Well you can't."
The boy sighs. "I'd like you to shoot something."
"Now that's more like it. But I'm afraid the Cap'n made me leave my guns on the ship."
The boy laughs. "He may have made you; don't mean you listened." He pauses, then turns back the way Jayne had been walking. "You coming or not?" he asks.
***
Julian is halfway across the building, assuring Arelle that he'll miss him but will understand if the boy wants to see how he'll fare in the real world, when he hears the unmistakable sound of a gun being fired. He offers his brief apologies to Arelle, then sets off running towards the source. "Is anyone hurt?" he shouts as soon as he thinks he's close enough to be heard.
"No," is the given reply, but Julian doesn't slow down until he's in the room with the bullet lying near the far wall, and until he has verified that no one is injured. Then he turns toward the Serenity's mercenary, just knowing that he's the one responsible. Jayne, for his part, just looks amused at Julian's fury.
Julian is fighting to control his anger, because after all, no one is hurt, and he thinks he's doing a fairly good job of it. "What happened?" he asks.
Quinn, one of the younger children and one that hasn't made a terribly strong impression on Julian one way or another, looks pleased with himself as he takes a slight step forward to explain. "It worked," he says, before the captain of the Serenity charges in.
"Jayne?" Mal asks, before Julian holds up a hand, thinking it more important to hear what Quinn has to say than what Jayne does.
Quinn just shrugs though. "I'm not sure I can explain it. I just helped build it, not design. For that you'd have to ask Kemen or Danae. I simply showed that it worked. Though not necessarily completely, there's still the iffier part of the experiment. Not really worth it to stop a bullet if you have to give up your right arm to pay for electricity."
Mal glances from Julian to the boy to the bullet. "Where'd you fire that at?" he asks Jayne.
Jayne doesn't bother arguing the fact that the bullet came from him. "The wall. But it stopped before it hit."
Mal smiles slightly. "Neat." He looks at Quinn. "Do you want to let Danae or...Kemen, was it? Know that you tested their system so they can check on it.
Quinn looks at Julian, who shrugs. He's obviously not in control here. In fact, he's pretty sure the only person who knows less about what's going on than himself is Jayne, and that's not precisely saying much.
Mal is examining the fallen bullet when Quinn returns with Danae. "What is this?" Julian asks her, gesturing vaguely towards both the equipment and Mal.
Danae walks forward, and holds her hand out to Mal. "Can I see it?" she asks, and he obliges. "Thank you," she says, before answering Julian's question. "Converting kinetic energy to frictional—heat—and then to potential. It's not a difficult concept, but the implementation is inefficient. Non-productive. The bullet was impressive, but not valuable from a practical standpoint. The field would damage any person it was set up to protect."
"Then what would be practical?" Mal asks.
"Lower your energy costs by capturing your footsteps," Danae says.
Mal raises his eyebrows, understanding a few of the implications this type of technology would have on the Serenity alone, and starts to wonder whether Kaylee would be more upset about being interrupted from spending time with the Doctor, or not being told immediately about...whatever this was. "What are your plans regarding this?" he asks Danae.
Danae shrugs. "I don't have any plans. Kemen might. I just thought it'd be fun to work on."
***
Kaylee's not sure she knows what the equipment is supposed to do, and she can tell that the Cap'n is a little disappointed she hasn't started exclaimin' in delight yet. She's had the apparatus explained to her, but only in vague terms, and it's pretty clear that Julian doesn't have a clue how to explain it, so she doesn't understand why Mal's lookin' like Christmas came early this year. "Rub your finger back and forth over this spot on the wall," Julian suggests, and she glances up at him in gratitude before trying it.
Her finger stings a little bit from the pressure, but as Kaylee watches the light haphazardly attached to the apparatus lights. It's feeble, but it's there, and Kaylee is pretty sure she knows what Mal is lookin' so impressed at. "When can we get one on the ship?" she asks.
Mal looks at Danae, who turns to Julian, who looks like he's in way over his head. Kaylee reckons she feels sorry for him. But then Julian shakes his head reluctantly. "I don't think—" he starts.
"You can't give this to the Alliance," Mal says.
"Excuse me?" Julian replies, and Kaylee wishes they didn't have to get into this. Not now.
"You've seen what the Alliance's done."
"I've seen what everyone's done," Julian mutters, and Kaylee doesn't know if Mal heard him or not, but at the least the Cap'n is pretendin' he didn't. "But honestly, Captain Reynolds," Julian says, and Kaylee can tell that's a bad idea, because only a few people address the Cap'n that way, and Mal hasn't been terribly fond of any of them. "What are you really so afraid the government is going to do with a new method of energy conversion? Power their big cruisers some way besides the conventional? The fuel isn't their main cost, so it's not like they'll suddenly double the number of cruisers. How will this change anything at all?"
Mal shrugs. His faith in the Alliance is very strong, in this aspect and this aspect only. But then, he can think of a fair number of things off the top of his head. It's obvious that whatever experience Julian might think he has, he's never been a soldier. "You might think the same thing about children, but the Alliance has always been good at finding a way. Pìhuà, after all you've seen here don't you think that, at the least, this research will get locked away while this government you're so fond of looks into potential military applications?"
Julian bites his lip, looking hesitant, before going back on the offense because it's clear to him that he can't just let Mal handle this. "So you think I should keep it locked away myself? Or perhaps just give it to the nearest independent ship, so they can sell on the black market?"
Mal shakes his head, clearly about to object, when Kaylee senses an opportunity to stop this argument before it gets too much further out of control. "There's plenty of places as could use this out near the black. That's where it'd really make the difference, but that's just where they're not like to be able to afford it if the Alliance or some businessman has rights to it. The equipment's not expensive, I take it?"
Kemen grimaces. "It is detailed, though. The parts aren't individually worth much, but the labor is. Even to me, and it's not like I've had that much better to do."
"There's a reason we've been working on this tiny model for the better part of three months," Danae chimes in. The time doesn't sound like all that much, 'till Kaylee looks at the other children who've been slowly adding their presence to the room, and realizes that they likely all had a hand in helping with this.
"Then you do what you can," Kaylee suggests, not about to let Julian point out that the Alliance would be better suited for this kind of operation, or Mal say whatever it looks like he wants to say. "Even if it's just a little, you'll be making things better. At least until there are enough of these devices that they're here to stay, whatever anyone else might want."
Julian agrees, but Kaylee isn't surprised by that, because she can see just as well as him how much the kids in the room like that idea. Mal takes a few more seconds, but then he too nods his agreement. Kaylee wonders why she feels like she's just accomplished something momentous, when the two of them probably would have reached that agreement in the end anyway, just with a whole lot more argument in between.
***
The second prototype, as Danae insists on it being called, as if that somehow makes it more likely to work, takes near six months to make, and they end up having to reuse most of the parts from their prototype, but it does work as it should. Julian buys cake in celebration, but Kemen is afraid that there won't be enough and it'll be eaten before he has a chance to have any, so he eats his piece too quickly, and doesn't enjoy it much.
After the completion of the testing, Danae helps them shift the prototype to a square on the floor, and River dances on and around it, a more practical experiment than the one Danae had performed first.
Simon is admitting to Julian that he thinks the time around the others has done River a lot of good when Julian's wrist beeps, indicating there's an incoming communication signal for him. Julian begs temporary leave from the celebration to answer it.
"Dr. Bashir," the member of parliament, Ms. Isae, greets him, and Julian does his best to smooth any lines of surprise from his face.
"Yǒulǐmào chēnghū," Julian greets her. "What can I do for you?"
"I was thinking about dropping by to see how you're doing."
"Of course," Julian says. He should have been expecting this: it's been four months since her last visit, but he wasn't. He smiles. "When can I expect you?"
"The cruiser is en route now. We're most of the way already."
"I should start preparing for your visit, then," Julian says, as gracefully as he can, and closes down the channel.
***
"We don't have to do the whole tour again," Ms. Isai comments, and Julian nods graciously.
"Of course. I'm sorry. Maybe if you simply told me what you're interested in seeing?"
"The classroom, with the rubber and the electrical parts," she says, and Julian thinks that maybe his lack of subtlety wouldn't be the impediment in a career in politics he'd thought it would be.
Julian nods his amenability to the idea, as he wonders far too late if he should perhaps have moved the prototype into storage. Or hiding. Whichever. But he didn't think of it earlier, and he's not sure he could have actively lied to his government, so his shock is genuine when he enters the room to find it completely empty, save for two chairs and a desk.
***
Julian manages not to tell the truth to the parliamentary representative, but it helps that she's asking none of the right questions. When she leaves she informs him that his funding will probably be cut. Julian is disappointed, but all he has to do is call up a few of the parents and force them to talk to their children, before he convinces them that they'd be better off staying with him for a while. And they all have the money to maintain the school. It'll mean Julian will have to move everyone, because he's fairly certain the Alliance won't let them keep the facility, but he doesn't care much. For the first real time in his life, Julian feels that instead of just trying to do something good, he actually is.
Translations:
tiān a – Oh god
wúnéug de rén — trash
huāngmiù gôu pì — ridiculous bullshit
duò luò — morally bankrupt
dà shǎguā — big silly melon/idiot
cánbào — ruthless
yúchǔn — stupid
yòuzhì — young/naïve
xìntiānwēng — albatross.
sì gāng yī zāotà miǎo — wait for just one damn second
bùlài — fine
hégànzhě — collaborator
yǒulǐmào chēnghū — ma'am
pìhuà — shit, nonsense