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Simon isn't unfamiliar with arguing a treatment plan, and it's ground he's more comfortable on than any other part of this conversation.

So he does.

He outlines the actual problems Holden doesn't see with his current meds, the long term damage being done, the tumors that still grow with them in his system, the lack of an end in taking them. And then he talks about the new drugs. Not that they don't have side-effects, too, but they won't cause long term damage. Holden will still have a liver, his kidneys, at the end of treatment. Which will have an end -- not soon, and maybe even not ever, but there's a chance.

"It's your treatment, you get to decide, but as your doctor that's the course I'm advising."

As Simon talks, and Holden listens, Naomi pauses in the hallway behind them. And then, quietly, moves towards the doorway, hearing out Simon's entire explanation.

She doesn't speak until after Simon finishes, because she knows what's going through her captain's head. How he'd agree without much convincing if it were for River or any of the rest of them. How he's weighing the dangers in his head against the temptation of the benefits.

"What do we have to do to get those treatments?"

She walks into the kitchen properly then, eyes on Simon.

Though she acknowledges Holden's reproachful look with a, "It sounds like a good option, Jim."

Ah, finally someone on his side.

Still, his stance shifts a little awkwardly at the very legitimate question now on the table.

"Theft, probably. We can check the black markets, but I doubt they've gotten this far." Simon pauses, looks between Naomi and Holden. "If it's any comfort, this wouldn't be my first time planning the theft of hospital supplies."

"We'd have to go back to their system. The one with the hostile psychopaths in control of their government."

Because he's not sure Naomi heard that part, and it's a salient point. Also, like, lest they forget the dangers of this idea.

Naomi takes that in, and Simon's answer, with the appropriate amount of concern. She crosses over to where Holden stands, says, "Anything that means we might get to keep you around longer is something I want to hear about. And we all get to decide what risks we take."

Then, to Simon, "That does help. If we do this, we have to do it right. There might not be a second chance to get more of the medicines."

"And we don't do anything until we've had this discussion with the whole crew." Holden reminds them. "Alex, Amos, River, everyone."

For a moment, when Holden says River's name, there's an expression of shame that flits across his face. But then he nods his agreement.

"Of course."

It's certainly a different method of decision making than there had been on Serenity, where Mal made the decision and everyone else figured out how to live with it.

There are conversations after this.

Conversations between Jim and Naomi, where he agonizes about putting them all in danger needlessly, selfishly; where she talks him down, where she reminds that his health and long-term well-being aren't needless. Where he admits, like it's a confession, that he does think the newer treatment sounds better. Something easier on the body, something that might even come to an end one day....that's a big hope, a siren's call despite his best efforts.

Conversations with the entire crew, where Simon's allowed to explain everything, where Holden reminds everyone he'd never ask them to do something like this just for his own sake. Where Amos agrees readily, easily enough, since Naomi wants to and since it'd help the captain. Where Alex frets that he didn't realize it was this bad ("It's not that bad, Alex."), never put much thought into it; and of course he agrees.

Conversations that end in them agreeing to check the black market, make contact with the Serenity, and then start heading towards Alliance-controlled territory.

River had agreed with a solemn nod when they all looked in her direction, her mouth drawn into a thin line.

Then she'd gotten up and left the room to let them talk about the rest of it, Simon looking after her like he was as lost as she was. Is. Will be, probably forever.

After that, she's as mercurial as ever, moods never staying for longer than a few hours. At turns she's morose, paranoid, excited to see Kaylee again, terrified and hiding in her room, watching her brother plan in the medbay from the doorway with a smile. She turns on a dime when it happens, sudden and unpredictable.

It's only natural that this would make Holden have second thoughts about the whole plan of action.

He says, one day, "It's not too late to turn back."

He leans in the doorway of the room, arms loosely crossed. Giving her some breathing room as he tells her, clearly having paused on his way somewhere.

"If you don't want to go back there, you can say the word. I'll cancel the trip. No one has to know you said anything."

She's sitting on her bunk -- curled up, back to the wall, chin resting on her knees -- when Holden leans in.

It's a good offer. A kind one, even if it tastes like biting back his own blood.

River looks up at Holden and shakes her head.

"He needs to."

Not, 'you need this,' no oblique mentions of fear or the lack thereof. Just He needs to, simple and unfiltered. She agreed because it's what Simon needed to do.

And River of all people can know that he means the offer with perfect sincerity. If she said the word, he'd go and call off the whole thing. Take any blowback from the others and claim it was his own decision.

The list of things he's willing to sacrifice for his own well-being is a short one, and River's comfort or sanity isn't on it.

"He. Simon?"

He would. She understands, and she doesn't know what to do with that kind of dedication from someone that isn't her brother, so for the most part River ignores it. All those knightly tendencies he has. They're too much and too little at the same time.

"Yes," she says, uncurling enough now to look up at Holden, her arms still around her knees.

Her gaze is steely, but it wanders as she tries to find the right words, to grasp clarity with her fingertips and push it to the surface.

"He's a doctor, he needs-- He has to. To be him."

"I don't understand," he admits after a moment.

There's no anger to his tone -- he's being sincere, still.

"I took him," is her initial answer. Plaintive, regretful, lilting at the end almost as if it's a question. A rare declaration of the ownership of guilt.

Holden worries about putting them in danger. About pulling them away from their home, of making things worse and breaking promises made with the best intentions. Second guesses the choices, creates little escape pods out of his armor to run from the consequences of his own decisions and hands them out like candy and carnival tokens. The option to get off the ride he doesn't have. He stands there and is sincere and honest and trying.

But River can trace the backwards branching paths of probability and effect to a cause. Follow the lines back to now.

"From what he was supposed to be. Supposed to do." She takes a deep breath, eyes back on her knees. "Gotta fix something to fix himself. It's recursive, it-- It's..."

Agitation is another part of the cycle the closer they get to their own system, swirled in with the morose and the fearful. Makes her stumble over a single syllable when she finally wants to speak clearly.

"Necessity of a problem. To fix. When the first one won't solve." She sighs again, almost benign annoyance. "Did the answers in pen and now it can't be corrected."

He listens, patiently, through River's entire explanation. And then he approaches her, slowly and carefully, like the boy who once calmed a startled bull. He stops a little short of her bunk, then kneels so he can be close to eye level.

And then he says, just as slowly, "River. It is not your responsibility to make sure your brother has someone to treat."

He means River herself, he means himself, he means anyone. It's not her fault that she's like this, and it's not her fault Simon had to leave his work. None of it's Simon's, either. It's just the shitty situation they've found themselves in.

"And I think you understand that not all problems can be fixed. Some things get better. And some things you live with."

River will get better. But she'll never be the girl who'd never heard of the Academy before. And Holden, with a device where his thyroid is supposed to be, and reminders that beep on his hand terminal regularly (take your medicine!), will never be the man who first set foot on Eros looking for Lionel Polanski. No doctor can fix that, no matter how well-meaning he is.

It's easy enough to listen to Holden. It's just vibrations in the air, intentions projected. She doesn't look at him at first, even when he approaches, but she listens.

Tears, also, are not an uncommon part of her current rollercoaster.

"No," and she shakes her head for emphasis when she looks up. "He needs someone to."

Has to be her, by process of elimination. Holden looks out for everyone, but no one makes sure he's okay. Their parents certainly didn't do much taking care, won't do it now. It's her fault Simon is here, at the edge of everything, living a life he never wanted. So it's her responsibility to keep him from breaking, at least any more than he already has.

"That's not all on you."

He doesn't move, even when she starts crying; not because he doesn't care, but because he doesn't dare disturb her. God knows she's had too many people lay hands on her without giving a shit about her consent.

"What do you think being the captain means? I'm going to take care of the both of you, same as the rest of my crew."

Edited 2020-02-02 05:27 (UTC)

He says I'm going to take care of the both of you and it's too soft. She doesn't know what to do with it other than feel it, get carried away and confused by implications and things unsaid. Holden is a good man, but he's not their father, not another brother. It seems significant, suddenly, the blood in relation and veins and wounds, and River looks particularly distressed.

Simon has told them, when explaining what it is that changed in his sister, that River feels everything -- that she can't stop it, can't regulate it. Half the meds she's on are to mimic regulation, or just dampen the physiological reaction to emotion so her heart doesn't beat out of her chest with it all.

She's crying in earnest now, all hiccuping breaths and squeezing her arms around her legs.

"Not the same, it's-- I don't--" Her face crumples with confusion, because that's another part of it. There's too much going on to know which way is up. There's going back, and options not to, and Holden giving those options, and his assurances, and needing in some deep and primal way for him to understand that she needs her brother to be the genius doctor he is, because if he's that then maybe she can be River again.

PICK YOUR POISON
PIC PROMPTS / TFLN / RANDOM SCENARIO
HAN SOLO velocities	BETTY MCRAE bombsheller	RIVER TAM subsulcus	RIVER TAM (AU) comprehender
SIMON TAM vest	BRIA THAREN exulted	NADINE CROSS bridaled	GU JUN-PYO toddler
available on special request: veronica sawyer, benjamin linus, imani, maria deluca, mushu, poseidon, niccolò machiavelli, malik al-sayf, chloe

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bet you thought you'd seen the last of me pt 2

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