(no subject)

[walk_ins]

Ksenya is in the process of showing Kaylee the house, which leaves Dunash and Simon in the library, with a glass of wine and an armchair apiece. Outside, snow falls -- approaching ten centimeters of it, Dunash thinks, and more before morning.

There's a fire in the hearth, and Dunash looks over at Simon. Firelight illuminates; it also brings shadows and planes into prominence.

Five years is a long time.

Dunash looks over at Simon and says, "The feeds have been quiet, lately."

Comments

[simon_doctor]

"Have they? I don't follow the feeds all that closely, I'm afraid."

[walk_ins]

"They have," Dunash says. "They seem to have nothing to report."

His eyebrows are raised, very slightly.

[simon_doctor]

"I don't think I've been involved in anything that ought to have made the newsfeeds lately," says Simon thoughtfully. "Aside from the gossip columns, which seem to have mercifully lost interest. Or possibly just lost track."

[walk_ins]

A moment's silence but for the fire, and then Dunash says, thoughtfully, "I hope you will not take this the wrong way, because it is certainly not meant in an offensive manner." Beat. "You seem to have a gift for disappearing."

[simon_doctor]

Simon nods. "I've had to, a number of times."

He studies Dunash's face for a moment before continuing. "It's been mostly through the help of friends who have reasons of their own for not wanting to be found."

[walk_ins]

"They must also be quite gifted," he remarks mildly. "It's good you found them, the two of you."

[simon_doctor]

"It really was."

Another pause. Simon's gaze goes to the fire.

"I'd like to tell you at least some of what happened," he says softly. "In confidence."

[walk_ins]

"It will go no further than this room." Every word falls with a sense of deliberate action, with a kind of inevitability. A kind of very simple assurance.

[simon_doctor]

Looking up again: "How much do you already know? Or, or guess?"

[walk_ins]

Dunash thinks.

"I do not know," he says finally, "who helped you. I surmise that you are very likely constantly moving, which would explain the many location changes. A small ship, perhaps -- a craft small enough to maintain tight security, and to go places unnoticed. It would also explain, perhaps, how you met your wife -- who has been mentioned in the company of Andronicus Crowley, at certain events, but nowhere else. I do not know how you rescued River, and I do not know where you rescued her from -- not precisely where. I know nothing of her current condition, and of her prognosis. I know that you and Kaylee seem -- are -- very happy, and so I can surmise that River must be doing...all right. Well enough."

[simon_doctor]

Simon nods. "She is."

A beat.

"When you say rescued ... you're aware that she was in need of rescue, then."

[walk_ins]

Dunash's eyebrows rise, very slightly. "The hearing made that clear enough."

[simon_doctor]

"I wasn't sure how much of the hearing actually made the public newsfeeds."

He pauses, to try to organize the information in his head.

"You remember that when we all made surgeon, River had just been accepted to a government academy for the gifted?"

[walk_ins]

"It was broadcast," Dunash says. Simply.

And nods.

[simon_doctor]

Simply: "That was where I had to rescue her from.

"The Academy project ... it wasn't until a great deal later that we found out what its true objective was, but ... River managed to get a coded message to me in one of her letters home."

[walk_ins]

He could -- perhaps should -- ask what the true objective was, but right now -- right now that isn't the point.

Dunash's gaze is intent. "And you did. After -- difficulties."

[simon_doctor]

"After difficulties," he agrees.

And adds, slow, a little apologetic: "I couldn't risk letting anyone else know what I was planning."

[walk_ins]

"Of course not," he says, almost immediately. And then, slower: "It must have been a very lonely job."

Also a little apologetic.

[simon_doctor]

"It was," he agrees, quietly. "It had to be."

Somewhere in the house, there's laughter. Simon recognizes Kaylee's voice; the other one must be Ksenya's.

"I don't know whether to tell you what was going on there in the order it happened, or in the order we found out."

[walk_ins]

"Either would work." Pause. "Perhaps the order in which you found out."

[simon_doctor]

Simon nods, and draws breath. "All River's message said was, they're hurting us. Get me out.

"And once I did, we ... well. We had to disappear, as you put it. She'd clearly been through a great deal of trauma, but I had no idea what they'd done to her, and ... she wasn't in any shape to tell me."

[walk_ins]

The lines in Dunash's face have tightened. "And no access to medical facilities."

[simon_doctor]

"Exactly. Which was why the incident at St. Lucy's on Ariel. I smuggled River in to use the neuroimager in their diagnostic ward."

Beat.

"I got a scan, and we were on our way out when we were caught by a team of Federal agents. We ... managed to get away from them. Just ahead of the second team, which weren't Feds. They were from the Academy."

[walk_ins]

"But the Academy was a government installation."

[simon_doctor]

"With aspects that were secret even from the rest of the government. Including their own, ah, security force."

(He's deciding even as he speaks that the true nature -- and the true origin -- of the blue-gloved men might be too much to tell. Too hard to believe.)

"The deaths at St. Lucy's that night --"