[Simon hesitated before answering. He'd known it was coming, but it was a question no one had asked him yet, even the captain, although he had a feeling Mal already knew what he was here for and was too polite (if that could really ever be said about Malcolm Reynolds) to ask, and he didn't really know how to explain it with her. The worlds they came from were fairly different, she didn't know about the Alliance or the war or any of it.]
My sister. She- [He sighed, folding his arms and resisting the urge to lean back against the desk.] In my... universe, I guess, humans have terraformed dozens of planets and moods capable of sustaining human life. The government is called the Alliance, and when my sister was fourteen, she enrolled in a government sponsored academy we'd never heard of before, but had the programs she was most interested in. She was a genius, incredible at everything she put her mind to, so it seemed like it was the perfect fit for her. She wrote me letters, for the first few weeks, but then they stopped and we didn't hear anything for months. The next letter I got didn't make any sense, and I figured out it was a code. It said "They're hurting us. Get me out."
So, after spending a lot of time and money trying to figure out where exactly they were holding her, I broke her out and we've been on the run from the government ever since, but she's not quite- [He made a bit of a face, trying to explain.] Before I came here, I was able to sneak her into an Alliance hospital to take scans of her brain, to try and see what they'd done to her. They used her brain like a- [He barely restrains himself from swearing, not really looking at Homura as he continues explaining.] Like a playground. The only reason you'd cut into someone's brain is to lobotomize them, or remove a tumor or an abscess, there's no reason to cut into a healthy one. They stripped her amygdala, the part of the brain that helps you process emotion? [Which she probably already knows, but.] So she has no filters. She just feels... everything, she can't turn it off or ignore it like we'd be able to. And she's not- [He trailed off again.]
Anyway. I can try to find ways to help compensate, with medication and treatments, but there's nothing I can do to just completely undo the damage they did. And nothing else has been working, so after we got back on the ship, when the Admiral offered me a deal... I took it.
[And even if he was some kind of Incubator - which he still didn't think he was, at least, not in the way Homura was familiar with - he had a hard time caring about what was going to happen to him at the end of all this. He just wanted River to be safe and have as normal a life as she could.]
Spam
My sister. She- [He sighed, folding his arms and resisting the urge to lean back against the desk.] In my... universe, I guess, humans have terraformed dozens of planets and moods capable of sustaining human life. The government is called the Alliance, and when my sister was fourteen, she enrolled in a government sponsored academy we'd never heard of before, but had the programs she was most interested in. She was a genius, incredible at everything she put her mind to, so it seemed like it was the perfect fit for her. She wrote me letters, for the first few weeks, but then they stopped and we didn't hear anything for months. The next letter I got didn't make any sense, and I figured out it was a code. It said "They're hurting us. Get me out."
So, after spending a lot of time and money trying to figure out where exactly they were holding her, I broke her out and we've been on the run from the government ever since, but she's not quite- [He made a bit of a face, trying to explain.] Before I came here, I was able to sneak her into an Alliance hospital to take scans of her brain, to try and see what they'd done to her. They used her brain like a- [He barely restrains himself from swearing, not really looking at Homura as he continues explaining.] Like a playground. The only reason you'd cut into someone's brain is to lobotomize them, or remove a tumor or an abscess, there's no reason to cut into a healthy one. They stripped her amygdala, the part of the brain that helps you process emotion? [Which she probably already knows, but.] So she has no filters. She just feels... everything, she can't turn it off or ignore it like we'd be able to. And she's not- [He trailed off again.]
Anyway. I can try to find ways to help compensate, with medication and treatments, but there's nothing I can do to just completely undo the damage they did. And nothing else has been working, so after we got back on the ship, when the Admiral offered me a deal... I took it.
[And even if he was some kind of Incubator - which he still didn't think he was, at least, not in the way Homura was familiar with - he had a hard time caring about what was going to happen to him at the end of all this. He just wanted River to be safe and have as normal a life as she could.]