The Universe's Mixer

Wash wouldn’t have thought he’d gotten so much enjoyment from eating a dill pickle, but the movie theatre sold them and so, it wrapped in a wax paper swaddle, he walked out of “Pretty Woman” with one last bite of the surprisingly scrumptious pickled cucumber. He popped it in his mouth and balled up the trash shoving it into the side of a bronze colored trash bin.

Hm, that was weird. Where was the door? And this was a weird looking trash bin. He explored the domed top and mechanical looking implements. He chewed one last time on his pickle as he poked the whisk looking armature curiously.
( continued )

"Oh! God! It burns! Oh! Ow! What is this bright and fiery ball of...fire! Augh!" Wash yelled as he covered his sensitive eyes with his arm.

His hair had gotten dark enough by this point that it was leaning more toward its red low-lights.

"Augh!" he repeated.

Then, as he squinted his eyes open he peeked at all of the people who were watching him.

"It's bright," he said meekly.

It was 1am. Wash woke up to a sound, some high pitched sort of chiming sound. With much concentration and rubbing of eyes he verbalized his discontent at being waken at such a terrifyingly inappropriate hour with chimes.

"Mrph."

That being said, he turned over with a groan to find out where the chimes had come from. He had a suspicion. He opened a drawer on the leaning night stand (jimmy rigged to not fall over after his rumble with the thing) and brought out the thin phone Tony had given him.

With a resounding sniff to clear his sinuses he blinked his eyes and checked his messages. Tony wanted him in the lab. He was testing something. It was a brief message that left little room for argument.

Wash thumbed in a reply that read:
IOK 'm no my wqay Predictor text, be damned.

Thirty minutes later the phone's gps took him to a ridiculously tall building. He looked up, far up, at the gleaming letters.

"Oh! STAR-K," he exclaimed. He'd always thought it'd said STAR.

A genial voice that introduced itself as the seemingly omnipresent Jarvis met him at the gate. It traveled with him as he stepped into what must have been the presidential suite of elevators. He swallowed as pressure built in his ears from being lifted so high so quickly.

Then, Jarvis' voice led him down to where he saw Tony.

"I think you need dampers on those elevators, Tony" he quipped once he made it into the lab, making a show of putting a finger in his ear, though he'd already popped the pressure with swallowing.

After the first day of total darkness, Maxine started to fret. She used the internet to look up when the sun was supposed to rise and set. Then there was the alarms. Maxine set every single alarm in the house, all for different times. Without the sun, the animals wouldn't know when it was their bedtime. Maxine had to fix that.

As obnoxious as it was, the owls and crickets were only heard during the nighttime hours. The rodents and other creatures only ventured out during the safety of the dark days. With or without the sun, the animals continued the best they could under Maxine's ernest direction. To the untrained eye, however, Maxine was a nightmare of a house guest -- waking up at all hours and going out into the yard, concentrating with all her five year old might.

It was a strange sight in the least.

Getting up at all hours of the night meant sleeping at all hours, too. Maxine had curled up in the living room with a blanket. When sleeping deeply, she didn't hear Jo coming or going. She did, however, hear the knock on the door. Her hair was comically disheveled. Maxine rubbed the sleep from her eyes when she looked up at the older man at the door.

"...Are you Jo's dad?" she yawned.

Wash had not been bothered by the constant night. In fact, for the past week he'd gotten the best sleep he'd ever remembered getting in his life. Being on a ship in the black for such a long time he was used to keeping time but the sky not changing from stars.

So having woken up early, 0800, he whistled as he went to a diner to pick up hot tea and eggs. He whistled as he pulled out his notepad and wrote more ideas for florid metaphorical poetry to win Zoe back. He hummed as he stopped by the park to admire the ducks and geese in the pond as they swam a bit blindly in the water. He could have sworn they looked the least bit befuddled and confused. He tossed them some crackers from the diner and walked on.

He had no idea how he was going to find Zoe. After that blow up of emotion at his apartment they hadn't exactly exchanged addresses and numbers. But there was a skip in his step after he had finally decided that he was miserable enough without her to tumble, headfirst, into trying to re-charm her back into his arms, current boyfriend aside.

In such a refreshed mood was he that he gave no thought to going down a dark and creepy alley-way.

"My beautiful, voluptuous Zoe," he said, reciting a possible verse, "You make the stars in my sky so glowy/ There's no way you can truly knowy/ That without you my world would explody..."

He considered the words as he jotted them down then marked them out.

"Too rhymey," he decided. "More free verse, I think. Ooh, that autumn flower thing. I liked that--AH!"

Because suddenly there was a dark shadow in front of him. And he looked up and noticed that this alley way didn't have an exit.

The thug, because though Wash didn't like to generalize he thought the label was sufficient for now, demanded money.

"Oh, ya know. I left my money back at my apart--" was what he managed to get out until he was shoved against the wall under the one light in the alleyway that provided illumination enough to see to walk. The large man's arm shoved against his trachea while cold metal was pressed against the sensitive flesh of Wash's throat.

"When you put it like that..." Wash wheezed fishing the two dollars and thirty seven cents out of his pants pockets and throwing them on the ground. "That's it!"

The man in front of him paused.

I don't like you, the man said with a smirk. He'd lightened up on Wash's throat a little with his arm which was very good for the breathing thing Wash needed to keep doing.

"Oh. Uh, once you get to know me, I'm not that bad. Some even say I'm charming so--" he was cut off again by a hard punch to the cheek bone which sent him reeling as the back of his head collided with the stone wall behind him.

The thug explained that Wash needed a little color in his cheeks. Apparently this guy was aching for a little beating up time and didn't much care who it was.

Wash managed to shakily block the next punch from making contact and kneed the other in the groin. The knife was jolted out of position on Wash's throat and made a shallow cut to his collar bone.

For a moment the former pilot thought he might have had the upper hand but the other guy quickly regained steam and though a defensive punch from Wash landed hard the larger man pulled Wash's legs out from under him and sent him tumbling face first into the asphalt. Wash felt the thug's thick fingers grabbing his hair and pulling his head back with the knife pressing once again into Wash's throat.

"Hey," Wash said nervously. "Can't we...just talk this out or--oof!" he was interrupted by the pressure of a knee to his back. "Or, get some tea and...maybe we'd discover that we have a lot in common. We both share an affinity for dark alleyways and...y'know...that's a fine start to a friendship, I think!"

Somehow Wash didn't think talking his way out of this would work. He closed his eyes tightly waiting for round two of the whole dying experience.

Without being to explain precisely how, Maxine knew that this world was not her world. No one needed to tell her, The Red of this place was different than The Red back home. Back home, The Red was much more complex, built up like a fragile House of Cards made of thousands upon thousands of ecosystems. This world’s Red was very small, like Maxine. And like Maxine, it seemed to be contained in one single spot, webbed through a single city.

The six year old wasn’t afraid though. She may not have been smiling but there were no tears. After all, Maxine Baker was the daughter of a superhero. It didn't matter if the five year old had no comprehension that Animal Man was a second stringer at best who didn’t make a big enough dent in even the regular criminal underworld to require a secret identity. She still assumed he’d be in the Justice League someday, on par with titans like Superman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman.

Aquaman was her favorite superhero besides her father, of course.

Somewhere along the way, a well meaning adult made up of the simpler Red gave Maxine a brochure. She could read some of it, but didn’t bother trying to struggle through the more complicated words. Maxine just needed someone else willing to explain it to her. Someone that looked trustworthy. The first person she looked for was a uniformed police officer. After failing to find a patrol officer, Maxine settled for the first adult who wasn't obviously an evil mastermind of some sort. Walking toward the lucky individual with all the confidence of a five year old, she tugged on their hand.

“Excuse me. My name is Maxine Baker and my phone number is six one nine, three four four, three one two three. My dad is Animal Man, he isn’t here though. He’s in San Diego with my mom and my big brother Cliff. Do you know how to get there? My dad can come pick me up.”

Maxine handed them the brochure which read, New to The City?

Dean had been so caught up in the Fred case that he hadn't noticed the City doing more than defying normal science. It was going full tilt screwed up scifi, and he didn't know what to make of it. He was on his way to check on Fred, maybe see his own personal superheroine while he was at it. His thumb grazed the palmside of the ring, but he didn't try to activate it. It was strange to feel comfort in a lo-jack.

The older Winchester glanced down at his watch and thought of shaking it, but he knew it wouldn't matter. Things had been off for nearly a day, and he didn't think it would get better. This was not good. He'd have to ask the two women he was going to see if they'd seen something like this. Dinah hadn't been in the City much longer than he had, but still, she might have seen something in that whacky verse of hers before all this.

As he was going to see Fred, one of those he knew could appreciate a good burger, he decided to hit up a burger stand that had become one of his favorites. The people of the City, the ones born there, seemed okay with the strangeness. Dean wasn't, but at the time, there wasn't much he could do. He had a few ideas of who to ask, but it'd have to wait.

He got in line to wait and stare at a dark starlit sky that should have at least had a little bit of sun in it.

Wash's 'night' had been lacking in the night part. Having had an interesting and informative conversation with Dexter hadn't made up for the sleep he'd lost. So he was a little less than focused this morning, which looked suspiciously like the same sun of midday.

So when the little sign turned from a green stick man to a count down to the hand he was just unfamiliar enough with the intricacies of crossing signs and just drowsy enough not to notice as he moseyed along the striped pedestrian track it turning to red and cars being given a definite green light in the meanwhile.

It had been a relatively quiet street except for one car. And Wash was also a little too drowsy to hear the sports car motor coming up to his side quickly. But, feeling the ground rumble, of all things, he looked up just in time to narrowly avoid the shiny black tires running over his shiny shoes and...the rest of his shiny self.

He felt the bumper of the sleek vehicle nip the hip of his cargo pants as he collided with the pavement of the sidewalk. He grasped the pole of the crosswalk sign yelling, "Qing wa cao de liu mang!"

(Frog humping son of a bitch!)

Wash stood stiffly on the rooftop of his tall narrow apartment building. His hands were twitching, fingers clawing inward. The sun shown down brightly through a beautiful azure sky. White, puffy clouds were floating by lazily.

Wash had to squint when he looked up into the sky. The warmth of the sun soaked into his skin like a hot shower beating down on his back and forehead and heating him from the top of his head to his feet. The air smelled fresh, like spring.

It was 3am.

Wash was furious.

Wash was flirting with Beatrice again at a diner he managed to relocate. She was humoring him. The city had made her to look in her mid 50's, robust build and dyed blonde hair frizzled around her like pipe cleaners.

"Rawr. You come back with two pancakes and I'll give you a big tip," he said with a wink. She just rolled her eyes and then shook her head at Wash's whistle.

She might have been a one dimensional character, but it was all Wash could do to distract himself from...himself. This was Wash being a hermit, you see.

He took a long sip of hot black tea and savored the social moment for a while. It gave him temporary happiness. A small jolt to a happiness junkie.

( Charlie had been looking for something to eat... )

(This takes place AFTER this entry.)

Wash walked slowly along his ever-changing trek. He smiled and nodded to the Greys (as he'd come to call them) that he recognized from other parts of The City. Most people, he found, did not arrive un-expectedly. Those who ran small shops, grocery stores, who were walking on streets as if just to provide aesthetic rather than having a purpose to be there weren't from another universe. They were here, just here. And speaking with them about anything too deep could be infuriating.

Add to that, the Greys seemed to have no distinct personality, to him. That's not to say they weren't nice. But the nicety didn't seem genuine. Or they were very static in their emotional state. They were two dimensional characters that seemed only to have a ghost of a life and sparse, if any, back story.

But they did tend to have a memory of him. So he stayed genial with them. As long as they stayed away from sucking his brains out, he was alright with their existence, mostly. Though he found they creeped him out more than a little.

Wash held a bag of groceries in his hand and let the plastic sack swing listlessly as he passed buy a broad building that he only paid attention to enough to avoid running into. He rubbed his eyes, red from too little sleep, and was about to clear the corner when a poster, quite literally (and he would swear up and down that it had) attacked him.

The thick paper smacked him in the face rendering him blind for a second as he grappled with the formerly stapled banner with a curse of annoyance.

He held it out at arms length and squinted at it. It was some fancy ballet flyer. Little girl on the front, it looked. Very familiar looking little girl at that. She was dressed mighty pretty and seemed quite sane in the picture. Nah, couldn't be River then.

But emblazoned at the top was "River Tam".

"Wo bu shin wo dah yan jing!," Wash said. And he DIDN'T believe his eyes. He especially didn't believe them when he looked up at the wall the poster had come from and found more tiny Rivers dancing on the front of them.

Following the row of posters to a side door he put a tentative hand up to it. It was ajar. He pushed it gently and peeked inside. His hand was still gripping the first poster he saw, plastic bag of fruit around his wrist, and blue eyes wide eyed at the backstage area he was suddenly inhabiting, he walked softly following music from behind the closed curtain in front of him.

He pushed aside the thick velvety curtain on stage left and peeked to who was dancing there, eyes blinking.

(Set ambiguously during the month he's been here.)

It was at least once a week. Mostly it was an inconvenient occurrence remedied by turning over in bed with a groan and pulling up the covers, but occasionally it was like it was now, thrashing, breathless, and terrifying. Waking up in a cold sweat, paralyzed.

These weren't wet dreams, folks. Not near as satisfying. Not at all, in fact. And it always started the same way...

He was flying the Serenity. There was a sense of urgency and he knew where he was. He knew he was flying to protect the crew. To get the signal out. And in the back of his dream addled mind he knew what was going to happen.

His hands were bundled around the steering, knuckles protruding with the pressure that required them all to keep from dying.

And even while he was saying what he knew he was supposed to be saying, and everyone else was saying what they were supposed to be saying, and he knew what moves he was supposed to be making as the ship hurtled further into the moon's atmosphere it never consoled his fears as he narrowly dodged things that would bring them all to imminent destruction.

He knew the ending of this scene, though. He always did. But he never deviated the script. He was a leaf on the wind.

The slam of Serenity bashing into something at the side was next. Then the shudder of her engines and the stillness he could feel behind him, the tense coiled fear. No, he couldn't deviate. There was no other way.

"Watch how I soar." Alarms going off in staccato echoed from his right ear and then his left ear. They beat like an arrhythmia. Serenity was having a heart attack.

His body alternated from hot to cold and he'd never felt adrenaline like he had rush through his body in waves. God, he was good. He was going to do it, too. He was going to land them. He saw it, now. Such blind optimism. Such bravado.

With a shuddering skid across Serenity's hull the ship startled to a shaking halt.

Mal's voice broke through the rushing in Wash's ears.

Wash breathed once. He didn't have to say it. Maybe if he didn't it wouldn't happen. He breathed twice and looked up at Mal. The captain's face had faded from dream to dream until it was like it was now, a dark shadow silhouette. No features. But he knew the face even if he couldn't see it. Couldn't search it out. You rarely forget the last thing you see.

The rest of the crew, in this eternal moment, were all the same amorphous beings as the captain. They stood behind him like black shadows. Even though he couldn't see him, he knew that's what they were. Slowly Zoe had become the same.

"I'm a leaf on the wind," he said softly. He had never looked forward in any of his dreams even though he knew what was coming. He was a chicken that way. "Watch how I--"

People have never underestimated the pain of being impaled through the heart. Mostly because those impaled have never lived to share the memory of it. Nothing can describe the electricity shooting bolts of pain in every nerve of the body. There was no word, no image, no sensation to conjure to be an example of it. Not even close.

Then came the brain's desperateness to comprehend and fight against the immediate shut down of motor abilities as last thoughts were met with pitch darkness. Seconds into hours of not breathing, not blinking, not hearing, and not feeling. And when it was this vivid, when the nightmare hit him with this much raw sensory perception...

He always awoke with his hands gripping the sheets and not being able to move. Literally, he was not able to move for a good minute while trying to grasp for breath, eyes still closed but brain awake.

When his eyes did open his body always shivered no matter the hotness of the room. And he would always look over to his right in the bed that was too big for him. Finding nothing there, he would turn on his side until the shaking subsided. He wouldn't sleep for the rest of the night but lay there until morning, no matter the time.

When morning came he calmly opened the window of his apartment from high in the tower and took in enough air through his nose into his lungs to yell, "TA MA DE!"

The City should take great offense.

Wash hadn't even really noticed that so much time had passed. For some reason The City had been giving him a stipend and he had been using it with nearly blind obedience. He was being rather unsocial, not traveling too far from where his apartment landed the next day for fear of crossing paths with a tall Amazonian woman. The one that was his former wife, that was. Knowing The le se City it wouldn't at all be unusual if it decided to drag an actual woman from the amazon here. Oh, to see the mud fights between her and Zoe. Might due his broken heart well.

Yes, Wash was becoming quite the hermit. That's not to say that he was depressed. Scratch that, he was hopelessly depressed. He'd finally showered, at least. After that odd encounter with the curious, pixie-like woman he figured it would do him well. He'd even showered more times after that, it had felt so good! If showers helped mend broken hearts he'd have at least 75% of his heart fixed up quicker than Kaylee could get a dead engine to start again! But as showers had yet to develop that particular ability he settled himself into a drab routine.

Wake up.
Maybe shower.
Go to closest cafe.
Flirt mercilessly with first elderly female server he saw. Either get free coffee/breakfast or get evil eyed and cold coffee.
Go to closest grocery store. Exchange naughty jokes with young, pimpled bagger (one at every grocery store).
Go home.
Eat.
Read paper.
Stare at crack in wall for an hour or two while sighing pitifully.
Eat.
Go up to roof of apartment via fire escape ladder and watch sunset, sighing pitifully.

His fun-filled day was no different today. He even took a shower! But after an hour of watching the sunset, things seemed a might odd. Mainly that he'd spent an HOUR watching a sunset. He narrowed his eyes at the edge of stars that remained around the brilliant final minutes of the day that had turned into a brilliant hour. It was enough oddity to shake his apathetic, depressed state for a bit. If anything mattered to him, it was the sky.

Addled, he climbed back down the latter and rode the creaky elevator to the ground floor. A yellowed clock read 9pm. With hunched shoulders he felt a drive to investigate. Investigate what? Well he wasn't sure. But anything that distracted him from his drowning in self-despair routine was enough reason to act. Even if the 'acting' part was just him staring at the sky and pointing dumbly saying, "What?" while donning his brightly colored pajama bottoms and A-line undershirt in the middle of the street.

Tact, he had not.

The boys had been fun, and she'd kept her husband busy for the most part. Of course, she had to let him see to his business and his progeny, and she didn't feel the need to be with him every moment. Well, she did, but she could ignore it when she knew that was partly the blood speaking. She understood the draw, and she simply pushed that to the side. Plus, absence did make the heart and the libido grow fonder?

Baba Yaga sat on the grassy knoll and watched as people played and romped like silly little puppies. Her nose wrinkled a little at it all. They were too happy and too quaint. Mundies, or sub-Mundies disgusted her, and she would prefer to see them used in some fashion. Then again, if they weren't so stupid, half the things that she got up to would not go over very well; there would be some champion type somewhere who wanted nothing more than to end her life and her fun. She did have to wonder though what her husband would do should someone try to kill her. She laughed softly at the thought of it.

Her head tilted up to the sun, which she enjoyed. The fact that the weather rarely changed allowed her to sit there in a nearly see through bit of cotton dress and the sandals. A hint of wind played with her hair and the hem of her dress. Now if she could just find a way to make someone's day...miserable, more interesting, just fun for her.

It had not been a good day for the former pilot of the Firefly class ship called Serenity. Still dressed in his ruined pilot garb he'd been wearing for two days now Wash wandered the streets of The City or as Wash colloquially referred to it as the life sucking, wife stealing settlement from hell! seeking out a place with enough alcohol to knock a whole field of cows unconscious.

When he did find said establishment (suspiciously close to the apartment), he settled himself on a stool and proceeded to drink until turning his head became a major stability issue. Still finding himself paining from losing the love of his life he decided more emotional lubricant was necessary. The bartender seemed wary to provide and Wash had already worked through the stipend the life sucking, wife stealing settlement from hell had given him and started a tab under the name, "Washed UP."

"I...was killed yesterday," he slurred to the bartender trying to defend his right for furthered drunkeness, "and so I feel I am due a little more, don't you think? If you died I would give you all the drinkingness you needed. I would. Because I am a nice person. I am the nicest gorram person you'll ever meet. In your life. OR your death! Most generousest soul in the black. It's true. Here, why don't you have my life? Go on, take my wife! Ha! Take everything! Go on! Take it!! Jus', gimme another, wouldya? Hm. My shirt has a hole in it," he muttered, fingering the ripped middle. "Take my shirt! Haha!"

While she wasn't at one hundred percent, the Amazon was doing pretty good. She had finally gotten out of her apartment, with a promise to Jesse that she wouldn't patrol a few more nights. Of course, Zoe wanted to do just that - get back out and patrol. She felt as if she was letting the people of the City down. The City had lasted a while without an active Bat, yet she felt she was needed. Alfred had seemed okay with the idea of her staying home, and they weren't overly upset at work. Then again, things were a little odd when it came to timetables and the City.

So, as a reward for being such a good nurse, even if he could have fixed her right up and sent her on her way, Zoe was cooking dinner for the Cowboy God. She was even going so far as to buy a few fruits that she'd never tried and was rather certain Jesse hadn't; they would do a little experimentation. He was making her more adventurous. Or more relaxed. It wasn't that she'd never had someone like that around, but she'd pulled herself in not long before coming to the City. She'd become very reserved; she was beginning to loosen up.

Zoe nudged the strange pink and green fruit around, listening to the older woman gab on about the things one could do with a dragonfruit. The warrior woman was considering a few things to do, but she was being polite. There were other fruits, and the older woman had been rather helpful on those; Zoe felt she owed the seemingly lonely woman an ear. She even nodded now and then when it seemed right.

The smile on her lips was slight, but it wasn't condescending or nudging toward a smirk. She hadn't seen the red haired giant in a while, so she wasn't afraid of getting attacked by kissing freaks. She hadn't even seen signs of the Joker in grocers', so she was feeling relaxed. What could possibly go wrong in the produce department of the local supermarket?

She regretted that thought as soon as it had been made.

He gasped as the spike sent an instant pain through the nerves in his chest, around his heart, and his nervous system shuttered to a halt until there was a second of absolute nothing. People underestimate the time involved in a full second of experience. One thousand one can take up so much thought, so many inspirations, so many epiphanies. But all Wash could think of was, "Zoe, I love you."

So when his next breath came it was surprising. And when another came after that, it was astounding. Even more surprising and astounding was his sudden realization that he was on a bench in front of a road with a rip in the front of his shirt and cars zipping by in front of a background made up of sky scrapers and street lamps.

His hands shuttered as he slammed them into his unmarred chest. He panted, then, a giddiness washing over him, laughing then as he shouted, "I'm alive!"

A passerby gave him a glare and his face became sheepish.

"Which is completely normal. And not at all insane. To be, ahem," he mumbled and the person shook their head and kept walking.

Wash's eyes blinked up to the sky and he blew out of his mouth in relief.

"Okay," he said with finality, finding his center. "Now where the hell am I?"

Jesse had been very busy, still, and Zoe was doing her best. She'd never had a man who was a god type too, even if some thought otherwise. In order to keep from losing complete contact with the man, or kicking him out the next time he fell asleep during dinner, Zoe thought they could try something a little different - lunch in public. Jesse didn't care if he fell asleep in public exactly, but it might keep him awake enough to eat. She really wasn't sure, but she was trying.

In one of her more tailored suits, including the heels that made her legs even longer, she stood waiting near her favorite Chinese bun stand. She didn't pace. She just waited. Her hands at her side as she stared out into the street, her lips turning slowly from a line to a frown. She was going to have to eat, but she hadn't thought he'd get caught up in something.

She never considered herself one of those silly women who determined their worth by how much attention their men showed them, but she was certainly starting to feel...odd. She didn't like being mad at him because he was helping people; he was a big damn hero, possibly one of the biggest. But. There was always that gorram but.

Wash was accustomed to having vivid dreams, but they were usually weird, wild and wacky adventures that sometimes involved goslings or dinosaurs. Vivid nightmares, too, though he didn’t like to dwell on those - nightmares too close to life, nightmares of very real potential dangers and deaths. This, though... this was different.

He had been dozing off behind the wheel. Not while piloting, of course - just waiting. It happened, sometimes; he’d slip into dreamland and be jolted awake by Mal’s or Zoe’s voice over the comm system. And now he was dreaming. He had to be dreaming. There was no way this city around him, these unknown streets, were real. Unless he’d been kidnapped by some random group of miscreants, dragged off of Serenity, and dropped off here. Stranger things could happen.

It was clearly a city. That much he could be sure of. It was dusk in some nameless city, and Wash stood somewhere on a sidewalk in the middle of it, gazing at the things around him with a puzzled expression and slightly narrowed eyebrows. It was old here. Weirdly old. There were actual cars driving by on the street - not land-speeders, but cars, mythical things of legend that he’d only ever heard of or seen in pictures. Everything around him was in English; not a bit of Chinese in sight. Everything was antiquated, ridiculously so; it didn’t make any sense.

He tried the pinching thing. Pinch your arm, wake yourself up. Classic and simple. But not working. Head quirked to one side, he touched the side of the nearest building. It felt real. It felt like it was really there. After a moment’s hesitation and fully aware that, if the whole kidnapping thing had actually happened, he was being incredibly stupid, Wash clenched his hand into a fist and slammed it against the wall.

“Liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze!*” he swore loudly, causing a few heads to turn in his direction. He was a bit too busy being confused, disoriented, and, after punching a wall, in a decent amount of pain. This was real. This was very painful and very real. Wash flexed his fingers experimentally, hoping to God he hadn’t broken anything. Wherever he was, however he’d gotten here, the last thing he needed was a trip to the local hospital. All he could hope was that the rest of the crew was around here... somewhere... somehow.

*Stupid son of a drooling whore and a monkey.

Up to her neck in the engine was a place Kaylee felt comfortable, but it was not a comforting thought that Serenity had not been responding to her at all. Kaylee was tied up in wires, her lap filled wit tools and her face coveed in splotches and smears of grease and engine muck as she liked to call it. It was the lifeblood of Serenity there on her and Kaylee was feeling like Serenity had finally given her all for the last time. Disheartening. Kaylee still worked diligently on trying to get the Firefly-class vessel off the ground in order to keep Mal and everyone else happy. Kaylee would be glad once she was off the ground again, but even as she thought about it she thought about all the good things the City had given them so far.

There was the food, real food, not bags of powder that they tried to make food out of. Not bars of gross proteins or cakes made to look like chocolate but taste like mud. Even with her helping hand Kaylee couldn't get much out of the kitchen that tasted as good as it looked. Then there was all the interesting things she could see in the city. The movies, the books to read, the dresses to wear and the fancy technology she was itching to get her fingers on and try out. Finally there was Kyle, but even with Kyle being around now and then, it didn't replace Simon in her heart. She tried not to think of Simon and everytime she finally got him off her mind she found something that reminded her of him.

He'd tripped over this wrench. Kaylee held it in her hands tightly and gave a great sigh. She must have sighed too loudly because out from under the engine the pilot of Serenity gave a muffled curse, she must have made him hit his head. "Sorry Wash. Everythin' still ain't workin." Kaylee went back to tightening another bolt and then fiddling with the grav-thrust.

( She'd explained the different parts of the engine to Simon while laying under it with him one night. )