Mal dream, Kaylee interruption.

[badinlatin]

Mal has no more vials of Faith's potion from the Bar, not that Mal would take it anymore anyway. It's...been causing things. He never went down to ask Simon for one of those smoother things. Not entirely interested in staying in his bunk, so what's a captain to do?

Mal heads for the engine room and an empty hammock.

"If you're on your back, you're either dead or you're hidin' and I ain't got no use for either," Mal bellows to the cluster of witless privates in the next trench junction over from his position. Mal curses at them; they don't move. He can't get to them yet, so he checks his ammo. Rifle's good, his sidearm's fantastic. He hasn't made any up-close kills yet.

"Zoe? Where you at, gorramit?"

Mal shifts position in Kaylee's hammock.

Comments

[gonna_live]

It's hard, trying to put up your hair with one hand while holding a mug of tea in the other.

Kaylee's not really taking trouble to be quiet as she comes down the corridor. She's also not really paying attention.

[badinlatin]

"I'm right here, sir," Zoe says ever so calmly. Calmly for her being firing off a dozen rounds at a flyby Alliance mechanical scout, bringing it down into a nice blaze of hellfire.

Mal can't help but smile at that.

"You're gonna--"

"move...can't stay," Mal whispers hoarsely. "can...get 'em..."

[gonna_live]

As she comes into the room her hands fall away from her head. A little of the tea sloshes over the rim of her cup and onto the floor.

Kaylee looks down at Mal. For the moment she's frozen.

[badinlatin]

"Zoe...you can't--"

"I can get to 'em, sir," Zoe contends, all the while hunkering down in Mal's section of trench. Not that he built it so much as he has become the last original surviving occupier of such.

"No gorramit, there's too much above ground!"

"Fine," Zoe doesn't go above the trench to go rescue the three trapped and scared recruits; she starts the slow process of climbing over the hills of dead bodies in the adjoining trench between the two junctions.

"What in God's name does she think she is?" Mal pulls out his pistol and prepares to give her cover fire.

[gonna_live]

Zoe.

Dreaming about the war, maybe. The other one was about Tracey; it's not out of the realm of possibility.

Kaylee puts down the mug of tea before she spills any more.

[badinlatin]

It's hard to toss and turn in a hammock. The best Mal seems to be able to pull off is roll his torso on his left side, making his body seem torqued at a rather impossible angle.

He can't hear what Zoe's saying to them, but he knows they aren't listening to her. One in particular - Gregor - he's backing away from Zoe as if she had a gun to his head. Mal's seen it before; folk can't handle the bodies...the smell of the thing, and they go wonky and shut down.

Mal sees too an advance sharpshooter working his way up to the trench on the other side of Zoe and the others.

"Move, God Damnit. Move...please God."

[gonna_live]

That's enough for Kaylee.

She drops to her knees beside the hammock. "Captain?" Beat. "Mal?"

[badinlatin]

"MOVE!" Mal raises his pistol, and everything happens all at once. The soldier moving backward up the trench as Zoe's trying to bring him down, the sharpshooter standing, taking aim, Mal taking aim. BANG.

The soldier falls into Zoe's arms, and the sharpshooter immediately reangles. At Mal.

"Captain?"

Mal can almost watch the shooter's trigger pull back---

"Mal?"

Mal bolts awake, readjusting instantly so that he doesn't spin himself out of the hammock.

[gonna_live]

"Hey." She's got one hand on his shoulder and the other on his arm.

The single word is filled with quiet concern.

[badinlatin]

Mal exhales while rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms, rolling them out gently to his temples before speaking.

"Hey, lil' one."

[gonna_live]

"...guess that wasn't such a good dream either."

[badinlatin]

"Not in particular." Mal straightens himself and attempts to look slightly presentable.

[gonna_live]

"I'm worried about you. We all are."

[badinlatin]

Mal struggles with a response, coming up with, "Don't mean to be makin' y'all worry."

[gonna_live]

The hand on his arm tightens. "Not your fault. Not somethin' you got much say over, either."

[badinlatin]

Mal's mouth draws further, with a shuffling of a booted foot. "Never could get you folk to listen to me anyway."

[gonna_live]

"Sure we do. And this is different. We listen plenty when it's somethin' outside us. But..."

Kaylee sounds frustrated.

"Guess what I mean to say is get over it." She kisses his cheek. "We're not leavin' you alone as long as we got say in it. And we do."

[badinlatin]

"Kaylee." A statement. Order? "You don't understand."

[gonna_live]

"What don't I understand?"

She's still kneeling beside him.

[badinlatin]

"I will not make them stop. There are things that you need to learn from them, and you can not without the dreams."

"What I'm seein', it's...it's my fault."

[gonna_live]

Silence.

"That mean we can't help you through it, as best we can?"

[badinlatin]

"You couldn't help if you wanted to."

Mal holds his head in his hands, running his fingers through his hair.

[gonna_live]

"But we do. And if there's any way...say somethin'. Please."

[badinlatin]

Mal lifts his head up just enough to look at Kaylee looking at him with...concern. Fear?

"Don't even know where to start, xiao meimei."

[gonna_live]

"Beginning's good."