2517 A.D. — Boros
"Great, just great. Absolutely perfect."
"It could have been worse, sir."
"And how is that?"
"We could have been caught by the Feds."
"We were caught by the Feds."
"Someone could have been hurt."
"Hello? Someone was hurt!"
"We could have lost the job."
"We did loose the job!"
"Oh, well then I don't see how it could have gotten any worse."
"For crying out loud Carter, you don't have to rub it in! Ow!" Jack O'Neill turned his glare on his doctor. "What the hell are you doing over there?"
"Pipe down, it would hurt a lot less if you would swing for proper medical equipment." With a ting of metal on metal, Janet Frasier dropped the bullet into the sink.
"Yeah, well, I can't swing for equipment if I don't have the money to swing, and I don't have money to swing if I can't get a job!"
"Hey, keep it down. I have other patients." Jack's eyes softened.
"How's he doing?"
"Not so well." Janet admitted, glancing over to the other bed. "His physical injuries are healing without infection, but I'm worried about the broken arm. And all of that aside, he just hasn't woken up."
"Head injury?" Sam inquired softly, worry in her blue eyes.
"I'm not sure. All signs indicate it, but I can't find the actual injury in a physical exam. It would be so much easier if I had a scanner." Jack looked at the occupant of the bed beside him for a moment, considering. Then he leaned over with a wince.
"Wake up!"
"Sir!" Sam cried out in alarm. Jack shrugged when no response came, pushing himself back onto his own bed.
"Worth a try."
"You're hopeless, sir." Sam informed him.
"I am well aware of that fact."
"All in your head." Three sets of eyes turned to the voice. A small girl, maybe ten, stood hiding behind the doorframe of the infirmary. She watched them with wide, unfocused eyes.
"Cassandra, I'm glad you came out of your room today." Janet smiled, approaching the girl slowly. Sam smiled at her widely, happy to see the girl she'd rescued finally venturing out for human contact.
"Janet, I don't like my room anymore." She informed the doctor with a sniffle. "There's monsters under my bed." Janet bent down and looked the girl in the eye.
"Do you want me to shoot them for you?"
"Will that make them go away?"
"There's only one way to find out. Come on, why don't you show me this monster?" Janet held out her hand to the child. Cassandra looked up at her surrogate mother and smiled, taking that hand and leading the woman away.
"Did you see that?"
"She smiled." Sam breathed out in awe.
"Not Cassie, Doc! She just left me here! Didn't even finish stitching me up, can you believe it?" But Sam could see the eyes, warmer than they'd been in weeks, trail after the two figures walking down the hall.
"For a smile like that? Yes sir, I believe it."
Malcolm Reynolds glanced to his left, holding a hand out to quiet Jayne. He could hear movement in the room behind them. Footsteps, two, maybe three. He turned to Zoë, who had put her crate down quietly and pulled her gun. He held up two fingers. She paused, listening, then shrugged her shoulders. She couldn't tell, either.
It was strange. Sometimes he could hear three sets, sometimes only one. But they all seemed to be moving constantly towards the door to the warehouse, where they were currently pulling off their latest job. Mal pulled his gun as well, aiming it at the door. It flew open with a crash.
Two then. He confirmed, a blonde woman and a man with silver hair. Both were holding an old set of Alliance issue guns, and both looked upon the crew of Serenity with different amounts of surprise. Seeing three guns aimed at them, both jerked their own up in response.
"Now what," Mal inquired into the silence. "Are two upstanding ex-Alliance officers doing in a place like this?"
"First you tell me what two ex-Independence and a mercenary are doing in a place like this. Oh, sorry, I forgot. You live here." The man snarked back.
"We're just here for a simple cargo pick up." Mal replied without missing a beat.
"Isn't that a coincidence, so are we." Jayne snorted in disbelief, and Mal raised an eyebrow.
"And what would Alliance want with any job so lowly as that?" The man blinked, turning to the woman.
"What did he just say?"
"He asked why the Alliance would want anything to do with something like freightering, implying that all Alliance thinks such things beneath them."
"Huh, must have been the rim accent. And since when did you turn into Daniel on me?"
"Hey, this job's ours. We got here first, so scram."
"Jayne!" Zoë hushed.
"What? All you guys were doing was throwin' insults at each other anyway."
"The man's right, sir. This here cargo's ours, and if you don't like it, well, it's three against two. I'm sure you know your math."
"I do, but I'm not so sure you do. You see, it's not three against two at all." Mal heard two different guns being cocked on either side of him. "It's three against four." Both Jayne and Zoë turned to cover him, but Mal knew it was too late. Slowly, he lifted his arms.
"Alright then, four it is."
I just had to, don't be mad. I couldn't help myself.
TS