What happened

City General was a busy little medical hub, something like what one would expect to see on those TV dramas about hospitals. Green scrubs and cold sterile white walls, the smell of alcohol and bleach, the faint buzz of florescent lighting and the low rumble of hundreds of voices made up the soul of C.G.

Tucked off in one quiet corner a dark haired woman lay in a clean clinically white bed, under clean clinically white sheets, in a clean clinically white gown. Inara Serra had been down graded to stable condition and awaited only a few blood tests before her release. The incident which had brought her in had raised more then one eyebrow in the C.G.E.R. She wasn't the first to come in, she had however been the first to be brought in alive.

A dozen or so like her were in the morgue, disturbingly three of those had decided to go missing a number of days after their arrival..and more disturbingly, their autopsies. Inara offered a chance the hospital had not yet seen and they jumped on it. While she was slumbering away her blood was being tested in every batch of blood work that they could think of. City General was about to discover the truth of the existence of vampires.

For her part in the matter Inara only wanted to be warm and safe and among friends. Perhaps that was what drew her in her dreams to the dining hall of Serenity. Warm friendly faces smiled to her and food..real food not just protein shaped like food, filled the table. Kaylee was smiling brightly, Simon seemed to catch her eye with a blush of his own. Zoe and Wash were doing some not-so-subtle flirting under the table, even Mal seemed in rare form. They were all there, regardless of Books death or Jayne's desire to leave or Rivers..being River.. all of the crew that had been was together. As joy full as she felt, something nagged in her dream mind that this was not quite entirely right.

(OOC: Ok, great for any Firefly'ers to jump into the dream. Even Dream himself. Feel free to take surreal turns with it. Feel free for others of the waking world to step in as well. Have fun!)

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As hospitals went, this one was much more the speed Mal was used to. No big, shiny monolith of glass and plastic.. But still a whole lot cleaner than the sort of folding table chop shops he'd seen in years past. It helped keep his mind off the unpleasant possabilities to mutter imprecautions about how that damned Simopn was never around when he was needed.

Damned doctors had kept trying to shoo him out, but apparently bullheaded and stubborn idiots like him were relatively common things around hospitals, and eventually they'd just ignored him.

She'd lost a lot of blood. Needed a tranbsfusion.
And human (or whatever that was) bites tended to infect at the drop of a hat, so antibiotics had been involved.

But in the end, it came down to what Mal hated most: waiting.
Inara needed to sleep, for however long it took, and so Malcolm Reynolds had pulled up a chair, set it's back against the nearby wall, crossed his arms, set his head back, and lightly dozed off.

Muttering some to himself about bats, and cramped cars.

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It was the right decision.

When the couple were safely inside the car, Batman took the precious second and a half to find the kit in the back seat. There were bandages in there, tape, gauze.... Enough to get by with for now, for the brief minutes it would take to get them to the hospital. He tossed it at Mal, then slid into his seat and sent the Batmobile careening onto its path.

"Who did this?" Batman asked, his voice gritty and dark.

The City was shifting again, surprisingly. The road to the hospital felt much shorter, which was an unrequested blessing that the Dark Knight was grateful for. Sometimes this City had its good sides. Then again, if the City had kidnapped the beauty in his back seat as well, it probably had a reason for bringing her here, too. Dying in the street did not seem to be one of them.

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Mal had quit asking questions a long time back.

How a city this big managed to get by without a single wide wave comm unit, was anyone's guess- but everyone's guess would be about the same: not very well. People came, and people went. Every one of them looking for someone, and Mal was just one more long coat in the crowd.

All things considered, Mal had managed to land on his feet; no matter what time or place a body was in, folk still needed work done... and it was'nt always legal. He still wandered about every now and again: keeping an eye out for the ones he'd lost, but more and more of every day was taken up with the dirty details of getting by.

Taking a few boxes from one fella in a funny suit to another fella in a bad hat (without drawing the attention of the local lawmen) had landed him the bare basic welding gear, to start repairs on what was left of Serenity.

Getting that message out for Lucy had'nt gotten him a proper comm unit, but the pretty boy had been good to his word, and set Mal up with what passed for one in this place: a little short range unit to unit device.. It beeped from time to time when work turned up.

All in all, it was like things used to be, way back when.
Every time the sun went down, Mal got a little bit closer to how he once was.. he got a bit colder, and he got a bit meaner.

That's the way a body gets when it gets lonesome.

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The lobby had proved less of of a problem then she would have thought. A brief interlude with a rather severe looking receptionist was handed smoothly by Inara. I'm expected, don't worry we can see ourselves up. With the well times addition of Eddies own glare of disdain for the short bun haired woman they passed with no further question.

"You have an excellent air of quiet authority, who were you imitating?"
The silent unquestioning persona was not his clearly, buy someone he knew well enough to have imprinted himself with it. He was gifted at it, must have been a wonderful mimic in his own right. Inara smiled as the elevator rushed up toward the viewing station that topped the business floors of the building. Apparently there were some offices above and beyond that, but those were of no concern to them at present.

A soft chime sounded a moment after motion had ceased, glossy brass doors slid open and the expanse of concrete lay before them. The horizon greeted them first to every side the purple pink glow faded into blue sky, dusted with clouds. Inara stepped forward first eyes sweeping over the landscape for once becoming aware of the geography of The City. Mal was somewhere out there, but there was a whole lot of out there.

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The Tower was a massive place of business, Inara was instantly reminded of the Core worlds just by the sheer size and presence of the place. This was more in keeping with the life she had grown accustomed to. Wealth and privilege afforded many social blind spots to the rest of the world. Having had the chance to see both sides of that fence the Companion was more willing now to gently guide Eddie Dean rather then chide him as she might have in another life.

"I doubt they will be entirely comfortable with your sidearm. Is there any chance of you parting with it so long as we are inside?"

Mal gave up his weapon only when he had no other choice, she expected no less resistance from Eddie. Still the towering structure would live on quite well with or without them, they would be the ones to have to accommodate it. Bodies passed them on the walk up the many steps leading to the buildings large glass front, sunlight glinted off brass edged doors as they swung offering entry and exit to the masses.

"Is this what things were like where you're from?" It would at least hopefully break the building tension she had noted in him since they first sighted and began moving for the Tower.

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He was also starting to feel … worried. Time was funny in Roland's world, time might be funny here, but he felt like he had been gone for a while. He needed to find his way back, but that was the thing wasn't it, he wasn't sure how he had got here. Not being sure how he had got here meant he had no idea how he was going to go about getting back to where he belonged.

The girl in the costume (the one who called herself Huntress of Gotham) had said the streets moved, and it hadn't taken Eddie long to discover that she spoke true. The streets moved and changed, the landmarks changed it was enough to give a guy a headache. He couldn't tell if he was walking in circles or not, because everything kept changing on him. So that was why when his wandering feet brought him to an apartment building that looked eerily like the one he had been raised in, he stopped.

The odds where good that he might not see this ever again. He could walk up the corner, turn the corner and find himself … somewhere else entirely. So he sat down, sat down on the front stairs of an apartment complex that looked like it came right out of Brooklyn. He had been sitting there for a while, starting straight ahead. Thinking. Trying to decide if going up and checking to see if there was listing for 'Dean' was a good idea, or a bad one. After all he had seen the Empire State Building here, who knew what else

(who knew whoelse)

had ended up here. A few moments of pondering than he stood up, blinked a few times to make sure his vision was clear, and started walking down the street again. He also started talking to himself. Talking made Eddie feel better after all.

"Ignorance is bliss." A pause as he glanced around; "And only crazy people talk to themselves. Besides, your old stomping grounds, you couldn't spit without hitting a building that looked like this. Coincidence. Now come on, pull it together, quit with the talking out loud thing, makes you seem more un-hinged than you are …"

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Inara blinked at the imposing edifice..Starfire said this was a bar, it was surely something. She wasn't entirely sure what to make of the odd structure but her own artistic impressions were less important then the chance to find out if the others had made it into town.

"This looks like as good a place as any."

Inara cast a side long look to Starfire her floating friend before she walked forward heading for the front door of the Lux.

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"Serenity this is shuttle one."
Silence from the com board, dark eyes slid over the face of the panel looking for flaws, as if she could spot them, in the workings. Everything looked to be in working order, so when one fails one simply has to try again.
"Serenity...Wash? This is Inara, is there an E.T.A. on arrival?"
Deft hands moved over the metal of the throttle ready to engage it and set the small craft in motion. She could see the bulk of the ship off to her side, her own shuttle neatly tucked into it's side like a chick under it's mothers wing. Still nothing but silence over the ship to ship coms...well not silence exactly, an odd static that might had voices lad in under it..
Ebon brow arched in query as she flipped her communication system off and back on again. "Wash? I'm getting some sort of interference Do you think.."
A concussive wave rocked the small shuttle, Inara was thrown to the side her right arm flipping the toggle that controlled the lock down between shuttle and larger ship. She was adrift, pulling herself back up with a hiss of mild pain and major annoyance, Inara saw blank space in front of her. Fingers daintily touched at her forehead and came back stained crimson.
"Jin cia."
Inara chastised herself for the careless actions that had probably damaged her shuttle or Serenity or both. Fingertips of one hand pressed to her temple as the other ran over the control panel. She both the shuttle back around to look at the damage to the larger ship...except it wasn't there. The companions eyes widened at the empty space that was all around her.
"Loa tian, bu."
Her voice dropped to a breathy whisper, panic stricken wide eyes searched for Serenity as she flipped open the comms again.
"Wash? Zoe? Serenity this is shuttle one. Mal? God..please answer."
Another of those waves washed over the shuttle, this one threw her out of her seat and left her unconscious form sprawled on the floor between the cockpit and the main body of the shuttle.

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