Malcolm Reynolds woke up.

Now, as far as activities went, waking up was not high on Mal's list of favorite things to do. What, for example, prompted sleep and/or unconsciousness in the first place? Near starvation? Assault? Sonic boom?

And then there was that whole business of figuring out where the hell he was- he'd never quite gotten the hang of that. The first split seconds of awakening were often ones of pure panic, as Mal's half-awake, half-sleeping mind struggled to orient itself to its place of residence.

And there had been some pretty weird ones, over the years, when he stopped to consider it. Right, right, that was why he hated waking up so much. With his life, you really never did know where you'd be in the morning.

There had been that one time, during the war, on that godforsaken moon- which one was it? Hestia, yeah, Hestia- when he'd woken up on top of six crates of pressurized explosives, ready to be set off at a seconds notice.

Or that other time, on Persephone, when he had made the mistake of sampling one of Madame GiGi LaRonde's special come-on girls, and had woken up naked in a soggy ditch next to a sewage dump.

None of those times had a patch on the surreality of this one, though.

…there were plushies. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Of all different varieties- some were pink, some were blue, some were a rather unpleasant shade of violet. Some had been sewn to resemble animals, some looked vaguely as if they were supposed to be human. None were successful, and all looked rather beaten up.

Mal spat out a piece of stuffing.

"What the hell?"

He sat up, cursing loudly and creatively as his muscles protested.

"Shouldn't swear. Swearing makes bad people."

Mal stiffened and turned his head. "River?"

The girl watched him solemnly from on top a pile of mournful looking unicorns. She was holding a stuffed rabbit.

It was yellow, with orange pom-poms.

"River, what the hell happened here?"

"Naughty, naughty," she said in a sing-song voice, waggling her finger. "Good boys don't say bad words."

He bit back another oath, and tried to control his temper. Why did he have such a big headache? "Okay, okay… What's going on?"

"Plushies want to play house, Bad. You have to be polite when you're in someone else's house."

Mal gave up. He wasn't going to get anything out of River if she didn't feel like talking.

He stood, grunting at the pain in his back, white pieces of stuffing sprinkling off of him. He surveyed the plushie-strewn landscape, trying to jog his memory. It looked to have been the inside of a factory why were we in a factory? but pieces of the roof were missing what blew up the roof? and there didn't seem to be anything or anyone else in sight.

"Hello?" Mal called. He turned to River. "Where are we? Where are the others?"

River gave a half shrug. "Jayne-bear is over there," she said, pointing. Mal looked and saw a pair of beaten up boots sticking out of a pile five feet away.

"Jayne?" Mal called, hurrying over, and bracing himself against the ground as he pulled the larger man out. "Urghhh…."

Jayne looked much the worse for ware. Not only did he appear to be passed out, but his right eye was purpling and a magnificent lump was swelling on his forehead.

"Mr. Bunnsy doesn't like Jayne-bear much," said River, matter-of-factly. "Jayne-bear said Mr. Bunnsy was just a toy."

Mal looked behind him, rather unnerved. "River, did you do this?"

She blinked at him slowly. "No…"

"Well, good. Help me get him up, th-"

"Mr. Bunnsy did it," said River, petting her stuffed rabbit. She paused, as if listening to a voice, and then added, "It's all right, though. Mr. Bunnsy doesn't mind you."