From off this brier pluck a white rose with me. William Shakespeare

5

Kaylee left everyone else behind, almost skidding into Simon's hospital room. The past four days had dragged by, made tolerably only by immersing herself in her work. The more time that had passed, the worse it had become, because she had grown more and more impatient. She hadn't even stopped to talk to Jansen when they'd arrived, and had only paused long enough to get instructions to his room from the ward nurse.

Simon looked up when she hurried in and his eyes lit up, but there was no familiar grin. Inara had warned her, but it still came as a shock, burning right down to her toes. A small smile ghosted across his face, the most he could manage right now.

In the two days since he'd woken up, he'd made remarkable progress, according to Inara. The hospital had a speech pathologist working with him, but Inara had warned her that Simon would never regain the full muscle control he'd had before getting sick. Kaylee had almost disbelieved it until she saw him, and saw that he could not smile fully.

She forced down her own sadness and crossed the room to his bed. Simon raised his hands, his hands that miraculously, amazingly worked, and folded them around hers. Kaylee kissed him and felt him kiss back, but even that was not as strong as it had been. But it was there.

"Hello, handsome," she whispered.

Simon reached up, running his fingers through her hair.

"H-hu-llo, beaut–" he managed, stumbling on the last "t". Kaylee wondered, if this was an improvement, what had he sounded like upon waking up?

"Cap'n gave us a new job," she whispered. "We're gonna break you out of here."

Simon's eyes twinkled brightly and Kaylee realized that she would always recognized this as his grin from now on. He let out a short chuckle, probably all he could manage, then reached for a pad of paper and a pen from the table beside his bed.

Doctor Jansen says I'm staying 7 more days, he wrote. But I'd like to go home.

Kaylee smiled, stroking his hair.

"You will," she promised. "But you should know better than to disobey a doctor's orders. I'll try and convince the cap'n to let you stay a little longer."

Simon smiled slightly and put his cheek against her shoulder. Kaylee managed to settle herself on the bed and he wrapped his left arm around her, propping the notepad against his knee.

Everything else still works, he assured her, and Kaylee laughed.

"It'd better," she replied. "Or else I ain't lettin' you in my bunk again."

Simon chuckled again.

Thank you for saving my life, he wrote. Kaylee looked at him seriously, then kissed him. Simon put the pad down and pulled into his arms, letting his touch say what he could not.

Malcolm gave himself and the others permission to visit the city for the next week and then sent Jayne off on a hunting party into the mountains. He knew the other man wasn't going to enjoy waiting around for the doctor to be discharged from the Companion's hospital, and he didn't want Jayne getting into the kind of trouble that only Jayne could get into. Not in Insawa, where the Alliance was too close for comfort.

River was staying at the temple with Inara – Malcolm didn't ask about that, and Inara didn't volunteer any information. The captain thought that Kaylee would have stayed in the hospital with Simon if they'd let her, but the Jansen was strict and insisted Simon spend the nights alone so that he could rest. During the day, they had the doctor working with a speech pathologist, who was pushing him mercilessly, knowing he had only a limited time there. Simon was improving by leaps and bounds, but Malcolm knew there was a solid brick wall coming, one Simon would never surmount. Listening to the doctor's hesitant, stuttering speech was hard, but even Malcolm could hear the improvement, and it was better than never hearing him speak again.

He'd asked Jansen if the fact that Simon had full use of his hands was a miracle. The doctor had shrugged and told him it was a miracle, or luck, whichever he prefered. She warned him that this wasn't going to be easy, despite the progress Simon was making. Malcolm knew that, but also knew that because Simon could still be a doctor, things would be all right, in the end.

A week after Serenity had returned to Attune, Jansen discharged Simon into the care of the crew. Inara had returned her shuttle to the ship, then had joined them to collect their doctor from the hospital. Jayne was back from his hunting trip and impatient to be off-world again, but at least he wasn't muttering – yet – about what a damn pain the doctor was.

Simon shook hands with Jansen before leaving.

"Th-thank y-you," he managed, trying to force his words to be as smooth as possible. It was frustrating, not being able to speak properly, but, given the choice, he'd take this over the loss of the feeling in his hands, which would have entered his life as a doctor.

"You're welcome, Simon," the other doctor replied, smiling at him. "I don't want to see you here ever again, understand?"

Simon smiled as much as he could.

"Yes," he said. He walked away, toward his crew, and Kaylee slipped up beside him, wrapping an arm around his waist. He leaned over to kiss her temple, then followed her into the transport Inara had called for them.

He was bored with being away from work, but he had no patients right now, and Malcolm had ordered him to take it easy for a few days. They were on their way to their rendezvous point, and Simon usually used his downtime to catch up with work in the infirmary or to do his inventory. Right now, however, the infirmary was off-limits to him.

He was sitting in the mess, eating an early lunch when Kaylee popped her head in. She grinned brightly at him and Simon managed to smile back.

"Good, you're here. Don't go anywhere, I got something for you."

"Whu-what?" Simon asked.

"Justa sec," she said, holding up one finger, then disappeared again. She came back a few minutes later, carrying a small stack of books. She put them on the table in front of Simon and slipped onto the bench beside him, tucking one arm comfortably around his waist. He raised his eyebrows at her, then pulled the top book off the pile. It had a cartoon dog and cat on the cover, playing with a big red beachball.

"Ch– ch– kid's b-books?" he managed, trying and failing to surpress a laugh.

"That's right," Kaylee said. "The doc at the hospital said you had to read out loud to practice talkin'. I thought I'd let you start off easy, say for a week, and if you're good, we'll let you start on harder stuff."

Simon smiled at her as much as he could and shook his head.

"I love you," he managed, saying it surprisingly clearly. Kaylee's eyes lit up and welled up with unshed tears, which she blinked down. She kissed him quickly.

"I love you, too, but that ain't getting you out of your work. Start reading, buster, or I'm telling the cap'n you need more time off."

Simon shook his head again, his eyes dancing, opened the child's book, and, hesitantly, began to read.