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i.
“Dr. Tam, a wave is coming through for you.”
Simon sighed; just out of nine hours of surgery and he was tired.
“Put it through.”
The screen blinked to life and Simon squinted.
“Hi Doctor!” He smiled as his eyes slowly adjusted to the light, the face in front of him slowly materializing out of the blue haze.
“Hello Christina. How is your leg?”
Her smile dimmed slightly, “It still hurts.”
He nodded, “Don’t worry; the pain should fade in a week or so.”
“OK.” She seemed eager to forget the accident that almost took her leg from her, but she was young, he thought, and it was too easy to forget pain.
“Here, Doctor, look!” She was holding a small, furry, thing too close to the camera. Its little nose twitched in fear and a single beady eye filled Simon’s screen for a moment before being pulled away.
“He’s a hamster and his name,” her dramatic pause was broken only by her barely contained giggles, “is Dr. Simon.”
ii.
Air rushed past his ears and his blood pounded as leapt over the rail and fell.
He had lost too much and worked too hard to have it end like this. To have it end, here on this piece of luh-se and to that bumbling fool Dobson. When River had left for the Academy, his life had spiraled out of control as the flaws of their family floated to the surface. Ugly, bloated things that no child should have to learn of their parents.
The day he left the Core behind, he had made a promise to himself that River would never go back to that. She would be cared for and protected; he would cherish the light inside her and never, ever let it dim. He would do anything to protect her.
And so he jumped.
iii.
“Simon.”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
iv.
This was his element. This he understood like the beating of his heart, like the chain of chemical reactions that led to its double-time rhythm. His certainty was bone deep, he was needed and so he responded instantly, expertly.
Simon was humble enough to recognize his own arrogance. Stupidity had never been something he had the patience for, but to see it here of all places disgusted him. In this room, there was no place for educated guesses or incomplete understanding - the slightest error in judgment could kill. It nearly had; the man in front of him would never know how lucky he was that Simon had been here. That River had urged him to help the dying man. That he could never deny his sister anything.
He turned towards incompetence in its most dangerous form.
“Your patient should be dead.”
v.
“Simon!” River jerked sharply on his arm as he craned his neck around the corner, “Tell me where we’re going.”
He spun around quickly and dropped to a crouch, pressing a finger over her lips as one of the maids came around the corner and walked down the hall away from them.
“River,” he whispered, “it’s a secret. You’re not supposed to use it, so please,” his smile stretched wide, eyes laughing, “be quiet.”
“Subterfuge is not your art, Simon.” He shrugged his shoulders as he glanced around the corner again before breaking into a run, pulling River along after him. “I think I’ll buy you a cloak and dagger for your next birthday.”
Simon was still grinning as he pulled her into his bedroom.
“There,” he pointed across the room at his desk, “it came while you were practicing for the recital, and,” she moved slowly towards the desk, eyes flitting back and forth to his face, “you can use it whenever you want to.”
“Oh Simon,” she breathed, running her fingers over its smooth, metallic edges, “I’ve always wanted access to any tein shu duh that filtered in from the Cortex.”
Her smile was blinding.
“I know.”