The Universe's Mixer

The joy of seeing Tony and getting to spend time with him uninterrupted had not at all gotten old. It was just the need for food and other items for continued existence that had them leaving the safety of the apartment. Annie decided to take some time and try to find Megan, Fred, and everyone else. She also wanted to do a little shopping, maybe find Tony something small. Find herself something a little skimpy to wear while she gave him whatever small thing she found.

That thought made her smile a bit, and she tried to hide it though she was sure nobody was really looking. Annie hadn't exactly had naughty thoughts in that vein about anybody before. Her ex-boyfriend hadn't really inspired them in her. Everything about Tony did, though. It was nice to have somebody in her life that not only enjoyed her abilities, but was impressed by them.

"Jarvis? Does Tony enjoy silly little baubles?" She looked in the window of the store she was in front of. "Nevermind. That's a stupid question. I know what to get him."

He liked intriguing inventions and new tech. Annie wasn't about to get him a stupid little glass frog. Girliness had taken her over for a brief moment. She'd go to her shop and see what she might be able to put together. If she did it in her lab, he might walk in.

So first things first, skimpy outfit. She needed to go back to that boutique, they had been able to help her out. Annie wasn't quite up to par with picking out fashion yet.

The meeting with Peter had been curious. Annie had discovered many things about the newcomer. He was kind. And helpful. She hoped that he fared well within the City and didn't get too messed up about what could go on within it. Though he seemed to know more than a little bit about strangeness.

She had managed to get the machines in her shop to explain more about what had gone on. It seemed like she'd been gone for a really long time, but the date when she looked at it on calendars and newspapers said the same as when she'd left. The machines couldn't account for that. She'd tried to do some investigation on her own, and come up with nothing. She needed somebody who knew the City better.

Annie had been trying to reach out to Fred through the tablet that they had built a connection through, but hadn't gotten any kind of answer. From what she could tell, the tablet was still there, but Fred was not, and it didn't seem as if she'd used the device anytime recently. Which was totally weird, because Fred used those things all the time. She'd tried to reach out to Dinah, too, and gotten nothing there, either.

It worried her.

She had a lot of paranoia about who might be gone. There was one very important face that she hoped was still present, but found herself far too nervous to actually call. His number was still in her phone, and his home slash work was still there - she was standing in front of it currently - but what if he wasn't? What if the arms weren't inside? What if the security system didn't remember her? What if even Jarvis wasn't there, or it was a new Jarvis that didn't know who she was?

Annie pulled on the end of her hair, a curl that had slipped loose from the ponytail she'd pulled it into.

Stark Tower was tall. As tall as it had ever been. She looked up and up and up to the floor that would hopefully contain her lab. She couldn't tell from here if her stuff was still up there. Obviously. It was way too high.

"Crap." She muttered to herself. There was only one way to know for sure. She had to go in. "Craaaaap."

What if he wasn't?

Annie shook her head and squared her shoulders. She would go look, goddamn it. The little blonde began the journey across the street, barely glancing left and right to make sure it was safe to cross.

Annie wandered downstairs from her apartment into the shop below. She was pretty sure she'd stayed the night at Tony's, as that's where she was 99% of the time now. Yet she'd opened her eyes to the Halo City sign that the City had thought she might want to have hanging in her room.

As soon as she was in sight of the shop bodily, a ruckus sprang up. It was almost deafening. Every machine in her shop calling for her all at the same time.

ANNIE. ANNIE we missed youwhere have you beenit's been too longAnnie you were gone gone gone gone Annie gone nobody here to take care of us like you did Annie don't leave us again Annie Annie Annie Annieannieannie

She had to cover her ears, but of course that didn't block out the machines. She didn't really hear them with her ears. Tears came to her eyes, rolling down her cheeks. She couldn't stop them. It wasn't just the pain of the noise, either.

How could they say that she had abandoned them? How could they believe that? She would never! She came by every day to check up on them and make repairs. She visited! She would never ever forget them!

"No." Annie said, her power truly springing to life then. Her words came in a choked sob. "No, I wouldn't. Please, please be quiet. I would never leave you. Stop saying that, I'm begging you."

But they didn't stop. They only got louder and more insistent.

Slowly, the little mutant fell to her knees and tried to cover her head with her arms to block out the sad calls and accusations.

Annie was feeling so much better. Not being in the hospital - she would have sworn on anything anybody asked her to - was actually speeding up her recovery. It helped that Tony had the best of the best to take care of her.

The only problem was that she was getting antsy. He wouldn't let her go upstairs to work, and she wasn't quite well enough to argue that. Which meant she also wasn't well enough to try to go outside. She did think, though, that she was well enough to have a visitor.

Annie found the tablet that Fred had let her borrow. She hoped that Fred had another source of communication. Annie held the device in her hands and let her power take over. She burrowed deep into it, finding another computer on the other end.

Fred,

It's Annie...

You can come get your tablet back...

And we can work on the project if you like...

AKA I'M SO BORED, HELP...

It had taken Tony a while to notice that Annie was gone. He was too busy on the revisions of the suit he'd built for Wash, and trying to once again set up a system to chart the City's movements and power source.

It was only when he'd finally surfaced for a real meal, a shower, and a chance in clothes when he realized that he was missing something else. In searching the Tower for Annie he'd found the downtrodden arms in her lab, and when Jarvis confirmed that she'd been gone for a while Tony had set the AI on finding her.

First came the police reports, and then a hospital location. Tony tried her cell phone as he suited up, flying over as fast as he could, not wanting to wait in the traffic or risk anything catching up to him. The armor dropped him at the front of the hospital and then went to the roof on standby, and a moment later Tony was inside, not bothering with reception. Jarvis had hacked the system easily, and Tony was too riled to deal with any receptionist telling him he wasn't kin and couldn't visit.

He didn't knock, either, simply opening the door and walking in, spotting Annie immediately and freezing slightly. He was not used to seeing friends or loved ones in hospital beds. He steeled himself internally, then walked over, for the first time slowing his pace, moving to her side and slowly taking her hand. "What happened?" he asked, voice quiet with rage. Rage at whoever had put here, and an equal amount of rage at himself for not being there, or noticing that it had happened.

The list sat on the table for a few days while other information had to be found. It was a short list with notes all over it, and it had been folded and refolded many times. There were other lists stacked under it, but this list was important. Not that the rest of the lists were any less so, but this one was the most important.

A hand grabbed up the list, folded it again, and stuffed it in a pocket. The same hand grabbed up a waiting tablet and a bag. Someone had a plan.

It'd taken Fred a few days to find Annie. Something had happened to the cyberpath. Fred didn't like the idea that Annie had been in the hospital all by herself. Of course, Annie had been in something of a coma, so...that really didn't make Fred feel better. The report Fred had found eventually said as much. She wouldn't have even bothered with looking if she'd found that Annie wasn't at her shop. It was a silly thing to worry about, but Fred did start to wonder when she didn't find people where they should be. So, Fred had looked and found.

"Yes, I'm her guardian. Or I was. I'm the closest thing she's got to family, so if you don't let me in there, you're gonna be in a world of trouble, you got me?" The brainy female was not going to give up, and she certainly had her determined face going. "And, if you ever try to keep me out again, I'll make sure you find out how many pisspots you can clean as an orderly."

Fred slipped into Annie's room, closing it quickly on the nurse before saying anything. She had her tablet and a bag that smelled like heaven, or in this case tacos.

"Hi." Fred knew that someone was going to ask something soon, so she had to move quickly. "I know you can talk to things and see if they'll work - think you could tell the City's computer that Winifred Burkle was your guardian until a couple years ago, or is that too much to ask right now?"

She pulled the moving tray table over and set the tablet on it along with the bag. "Oh, I brought you tacos." As if that would make everything right. Just look at Fred's smile.

Annie had no idea what happened after the guy who attacked her was gone. She'd lost consciousness and just saw black. She felt like she heard the sound of a car pulling up, but that could all be in her head. In fact, the whole event seemed like an unpleasant dream, hazy around the edges and a little bit floaty, as well.

The constant steady beeping was what brought her into focus. Every couple of seconds, there it was again. Beep. Beep. Beep. Electronic in origin. There was nothing in the natural world that made sounds like that. Men programmed machines to create such noises. They were used to alert one another to things. Low batteries. Progress. Other whatnot that she couldn't think of right at this moment.

Her head felt like the dream had been. Fuzzy and filled with mud. She opened her eyes a little bit, and everything around her seemed coated in white. The lights were dim, yet still stung. It smelled too clean, bleached. Annie was confused.

"Oh, you're awake. Good!"

"What?" Annie's mouth was dry, cottony.

"Do you know where you are, honey?" Who was that voice? Why were they - she... it was a she - why was she talking like that?

"No?"

"Oh. Dear. Well. You're in the hospital, and have been for a while. We had you in a medically induced coma. Do you remember what happened?"

"No... oh. Oh. It wasn't a dream." Annie'e eyes cleared up more, and she looked around best she could. The white was explained better, the beeping made sense. "That man ... that man shot me!"

"Twice, dear. He also left you to die on the sidewalk. We have no idea who called it in, but you should be thankful that they did. You wouldn't have lasted the night."

"Am I..."

"Damaged permanently? No. You'll recover. But you'll be here for a while yet. Too bad you're not one of those superhero types. You'd have already been healed up by now. You have got to be starving though. Anything particular you want? Keep in mind you're on morphine, so you might vomit pretty quick. But I'll clean it up. You deserve anything you'd like to have. Just don't make it a habit, okay?"

Permission to vomit. That was a new one. "A hamburger, maybe? With fries?"

"Sure thing."

"And, can I call anyone?"

"Not until the cops talk to you. Unless it's family."

"Is my boyfriend considered family?"

"Not really, dear."

"Oh."

"I'll be right back with your dinner. Breakfast. It's really breakfast."

Annie decided she was going to close her eyes until the meal got to her. She wanted to see Tony very much. She wondered why she wasn't with him, in Stark Tower. Had he not gotten her S.O.S.? Had she failed in sending it somehow? Or had the stranger gotten there before the message had gotten all the way through?

The night was still. Unmoving. Like a statue almost and it both elated and frightened Edward. He wasnt scared of many things to be quite honest but a quiet night made him paranoid. He wasnt a man for stillness. For quiet. Eddie didn't even sleep in the same position, if he slept at all, always needing motion. His body needed action, and his mind ran constantly so to have a moment of silence was awkward. And yet it was so peaceful.

His daughters absence spurred something in him he wasn't sure how to place. It was something he both craved and loathed. He craved it because she burdened him deeply. He felt that his life was cast to play every part for her, to work her towards a goal she continued to slip away from. He wanted her to be perfect, and he loathed her because she never truly could be. Not to him, anyway. His mind wouldn't allow it. Eddie would rather see his daughter void of life than living a falsity. Even her supposed happiness wasnt good enough. It was a show, an act that her mind projected to hide the true desires beneath. Those desires were what Edward craved to bring to light. To mold, to shape. He had instilled those desires within her and she was suppressing them.

Oh he hated her.

Jingle, jingle....

Then there came that jingle.

As he moved, the pockets of his jacket swayed with the motion of his legs as they carried him down the sidewalk. Within the pockets were bullets, a good many and the way they sang into the night one would think simply Edward had many coins hiding within the fabric. But they only wished to be coins. Instead, they were metallic cylinders that could take a life.

Edward had loaded up in hopes of finding someone to murder, as taking life eased his internal rage (the one thing he secretly shared with the Doctor) but he hadnt found a good enough target to satisfy his urge. His need.

With a breath Edward exhaled into the night. He floated down the street almost, in a daze as his thoughts over-rode his natural motor skills leaving his body in auto-pilot. He wasnt going to join the hunt to look for his daughter. If they found her dead it would be the light of his night. If they found her alive that would be alright too. He could just kill her.

Slowly, Edward continued to jingle along the sidewalk, passing shops and stores closed for the night as he walked like a shadow. His green suit jacket did well to conceal his weapons, and despite forgetting his cane at the Asylum, Edward felt quite safe. Quite safe indeed now that the silence had been thoroughly broken.

Annie was exhausted.

There had been an idea brewing in her head for a while, taking up all of her thoughts. Even when she was at Fixit she was really not all there. Her brain hovered around the idea when she was talking with other people, danced around it when she was trying to sleep. Finally, she had gathered what she needed in order to make it a reality, and had set about the task of seeing the idea to fruition.

She had been up for days working on the schematics and hammering out some last kinks. Building was about to begin, she was just on the edge of it. But she'd already run herself ragged. She'd tried a few different energy drinks, high octane energy bars that tasted like cardboard, and even attempted a few exercise machines to get her blood pumping.

In the end though, she wound up sitting on a stool, bent over onto her arms at one of the work tables, sound asleep. There was a screwdriver in one hand, precariously close to poking her in the face. One wrong move and she'd likely jolt awake because of the scrape of metal. She'd so wanted to start the actual work on the idea, and here she was, slumbering instead.

Jarvis had dimmed the lights of the room and started some low, soothing music. He'd ushered the arms out of the workspace so that they wouldn't inadvertently wake Annie somehow. It was a toss up on if she would have been thankful or mad if she knew. That driven part of her had told Jarvis to keep her up and had asked him to provide the names of those drinks and pseudo-foods she'd had earlier. But the rational part of her had been telling her she needed rest, and the idea would still be there after.

Oswin closed her eyes and waited patiently, calmly for her destruction. It didn't matter that her eyes weren't real, the asymmetrical neckline of her red crew dress wasn't real, the chair she sat in wasn't real nor was the keyboard balanced precariously on the arm of said chair under her manicured left hand. Her hands weren't even real. Oswin didn't have hands anymore.

She dreamed it all for herself because the truth was too terrible. Knowing the truth now didn't matter. She still preferred the dream. She still preferred to think of herself as someone with legs and long brown hair, even if she was tired of wearing the same little red dress and matching sneakers.

It all felt real, right down to the cowlick that liked to form along the hairline.

All she wanted was to be remembered for the girl that she was.

Her moment of selfless sacrifice was interrupted by the loud, angry honk of a car. Oswin jumped in her seat (it didn’t matter anymore at that moment that the chair wasn’t real), startled now by a chorus of honking cars.

When Oswin opened her eyes -- or eye, as it were -- to see she was no longer in the sterile white room of the asylum, but an open city street. Her ship -- because Oswin couldn’t bring herself to think of it as a body -- was parked in the middle of a busy intersection.

Traffic started to build up.

”Oh Chin Boy, this was you, wasn’t it? Where have you put me now, you clever boy...” In her mind’s eye she’d been talking, but they were really just thoughts.

Her real voice wasn't heard until moments later: "SORRY! SORRY!"

A few cars started to go around the dalek, which looked perilously close to her single walleyed eyestalk.

"OI! WATCH THE HARDWARE!" Oswin frowned. First day of freedom and she was spending it stuck in traffic. Brilliant.

Unlike Dean, Sam had no pressing need to look for Fred. He knew what had happened to his former girl Friday, for lack of a better word. He didn't care all that much though he was certainly pretending he cared. He was also pretending to help in the search, which meant that he'd done a few things on his laptop to try to triangulate the position that Angel Investigations had been in before the fire.

Or at least, he'd been doing those searches on his laptop until the damn thing broke on him. Sure, he could use his phone but that didn't mean that he wanted to give up the laptop entirely.

Dean had mentioned the technogirl, Annie or Amy or Ally. Something with an A like that. He'd also briefly mentioned the shop that whatsherface worked at, Fixit. Sam thought that it couldn't hurt to stop in and see what Ashley could do for him.

So, laptop in hand, he let himself into the shop once he'd found it.

Annie had been taking time in returning her workspace to the way it had been. She'd come back to it from Fixit one day to find it ... not ruined... but not the way that she had left it. It was like the whole building had suffered an earthquake and things had shifted. Some things had broken, too, which annoyed her. Thankfully, though, the arm and the mini arm were okay and her current project hadn't done more than slide to the right on the table it was on.

The turmoil in Stark Tower had only gotten worse after that, and Annie could only suspect that it was coming from one source. She had not yet met the red headed girl who had taken up residence with Bruce downstairs, but she was sure that all the trouble had started with her. Eventually, Annie had sent a note up with the big arm to Tony, inquiring about the goings on.

In return she got a brief text: Yeah. Bitch fest and plot party 8pm, living room. Don't make other plans tonight.

Annie decided that it would also be a good time to give him his Christmas present, since it seemed to her that he'd just vanished on the actual day. It was nicely wrapped, and thankfully she'd taken it home with her so it hadn't suffered any of the violence. She hadn't wanted Tony to get curious and open it without her being there.

At the appointed hour, Annie headed upstairs. She was dressed a little bit nicer than she had been when she arrived for work, and there were no marks of what she'd been doing all day on her anywhere. She had pointedly ignored Jarvis when he mentioned that she was just going upstairs to see Tony in his home, and cleaned herself up.

The box was on the small side, wrapped in a deep red paper with a black velvet ribbon around it. It might have been a little too fancy, but Annie just wanted a nice presentation. In the bow was tied a titanium spork, not the real gift, but she'd overheard Tony talking to himself about how much of a let down the spork was.

She hit the call button for the elevator.

After talking to Tony about everything that she'd seen, Annie decided that she was going to visit one of those places. Not the zoo, since she was still determined to get both Megan and Rufio in on that one. But the Botanical Garden seemed to be calling her name. Her world didn't have things like botanical gardens. Really, not many people had gardens, period. But one that the city kept and sustained? It was unheard of. There were more important things to take care of, such as destroyed buildings that threatened to fall and whole wastelands that they needed to try to clean up.

Her walk over gave her plenty of time to relive the night she'd spent glamored up and on the arm of Tony Stark. It was safe to say that her crush was growing. If he had been the Tony from the other world, she wouldn't have worried so much about telling him. That Tony had given her clear signals. This Tony seemed caught up in Pepper. Annie didn't want to tangle herself in that. At this point, she thought that if Pepper showed, he wouldn't hesitate to run to her. That would be uncomfortable to say the least.

But that didn't mean she couldn't live in her mind about it.

They had walked all over the place. Just talking and admiring the sights and the relative quietness of the city around them. There had been much laughter. Maybe a little flirting on Annie's part, but she felt that it must have gone unnoticed. When they'd gotten back to the car, her feet had been filthy. Tony had washed them so she could put her fancy shoes back on without worrying about ruining them. It had been a sweet gesture, an unexpected one. And he'd found out that her feet were really ticklish right by the toes. There had been a little more alcohol on their way back to the tower, but then they had parted ways.

All in all, the night had been wonderful. Annie hadn't wanted it to end.

She was smiling as she approached the entry window for the garden. There was a very small line. Annie felt that if she had a botanical garden in her world, she would have been there all the time, so the small number of people going into this one was a little saddening to her. It might have also intrigued her because even from the outside she'd seen plants that were unidentifiable, and there were whole sections that couldn't be seen from the fence. And an inside area that boasted who knew what.

Annie had been busy, and Tony had been busier. It seemed like everything in life was keeping them away from one another. Even though they worked in the same building, and often the same rooms, every time she thought that they'd get a few minutes together, something happened and one or the other had to run off again.

She tried to busy herself and not think about it as much as possible. But she'd not yet gotten over the massive crush she'd thought was just passing fancy. Annie knew the way that Tony was, and she knew about Pepper, and she tried really hard to not get jealous at the thought of any of it, but she discovered herself broody and irritable when it popped into her head. She knew that she had no right, and kept all of it to herself. The last thing she needed was Jarvis mentioning it.

"Thank you." She said to the arm bot, which still didn't have a real name, but seemed to enjoy helping her out quite a bit. It had currently handed her a part that she had been looking for, and it had hidden. Annie suspected that a few of her personal items were in the robot's safe keeping places, as they'd vanished and she couldn't get any sort of information from it when she asked about them. If the mechanical arm could whistle it's innocence, Annie thought that the halls would be filled with music. She supposed it was trying to make sure that it wasn't going anywhere, but that didn't make her any less annoyed at the loss of the hairbrush, toothpaste and two pajama sets she'd brought here just in case.

Annie fit the part into the gadget she was attempting to create. It had started life as something more complex, but was currently becoming a miniature incarnation of the arm bot. She didn't need schematics to know how the simple thing worked, and she was starting to feel that it would do well with a little friend.

"I need more wire." She told the overeager machine next to her. "And a two inch long 3/4th screw."

Dinah was really fed up with getting dirty picture messages from a certain vampire, and more fed up with the fact that she couldn't find a phone store to change her number, nor could she simply lose her phone.

That was why she was glad that Fred seemed to think she knew someone who could help. She trusted Fred's judgment and hoped that her brainy friend was right. She really hoped she was right.

Dinah followed Fred as they walked through the City looking for Annie's shop. She glanced over at Fred as they walked.

"So how did you meet Annie?" she asked.

Annie wasn't entirely used to working in the R&D department for Tony Stark, she'd only just started getting ideas of things to build. She was gathering the bits she thought she would need, sure that there would end up being things she'd have to find later to add. That was okay, though. It was all about the learning process.

She was also learning about new music. Which she might have been doing more today than anything else. The radio was on and it piped in a stream of new things for her to learn about. A few of them repeated themselves, which was a little annoying. But there was one that she felt was made for her in a way.

And she danced to it every time it came around.

It wasn't until a few hours had gone by that she realized there were eyes here that weren't in her shop. Eyes that might tell Tony what she'd been doing all day. Annie stopped in mid step and looked around. Not that she'd be able to physically see the presence of one of those things with eyes that might share her private moments.

"Jarvis? Are you watching?"

There was no answer, but that didn't mean anything.

Annie pulled herself out of slumber, expecting there to be a snarky older gentleman next to her. She'd been staying with him in the rather small apartment, going out into the strange world only a little bit. Mostly she was content to sit and work, or talk to the suit. She was also worried about running into the people that Tony had warned her of. It seemed smarter to stay inside, really.

When she woke in her own bed, in her own apartment above Fixit, she actually felt a little bit of disappointment. She hadn't been happy to be in a world with very little tech, or one that wasn't the City, but she'd found in Tony somebody who she felt a new kind of connection with. She had felt something similar in Fred, but in a much different way.

Of course, she did immediately climb into the shower and stay in it until the water was getting cold, and used up a lot of her favorite shower gel, just because it was actually there. Following that, she might have overindulged some on the snacks in her cupboard that the City provided for her, as well as some soda and ice cream.

Post these events, Annie made her way out into the streets, where she was greeted with the noise of city living. Technology all around her. Cars on the streets. Buildings that didn't look like they'd been next to an explosion. A wall that was there to keep them from falling off of a space-island instead of keeping bad things out.

She did miss the suit already, though.

Really, she was torn. Tech and food and cleanliness VS Tony and the suit. She wondered if she should try to find Dean, or Charlie. Or Fred. Or Megan. She wondered if anybody else had made the trip she had, or if she was the only one. Had they missed her, if so?

Not sure what to do, Annie stood in front of the shop, staring at the sky.

Fred hadn't been in hiding since the strange meeting at the bookstore. She'd meant to check on Errol, but the check-up hadn't gone at all how she'd planned. Not that she'd had anything planned in particular, but she was certain that she would not have planned what happened had she been allowed to plan anything. Or admitted to planning anything.

She was glad to see that Errol was working with someone, rather than sitting all alone in the bookstore. He needed companionship, someone to remind him that he was human and it was okay to smile. Beauty seemed very much the right person for that, what little Fred had been able to gather from the odd brief meeting. She smiled - Beauty had - which was a good thing. And, she was soft in a giving way; Beauty'd only wanted the best outcome, hadn't she? She cared, again another plus in Fred's opinion. Of course, this was all going on a very short brief meeting and way too many assumptions. Then again, Beauty worked in a bookstore, not a strip joint, so surely she was that sort of bookish Beauty, not the other kind? Not that there was anything wrong with strippers; Fred just hadn't met many.

The brainy Texan continued this sort of inner dialogue, working out what had happened as well as throwing in a few items from her day job; she was starting to wonder if they didn't need an accountant or insurance. Angel Investigations wasn't a huge money maker, but sure, she could make the money that did come in work for her somehow.

The City allowed her time to think during her walk. She had a destination in mind, a purpose, and she hoped that she was going to get good answers. Annie could help; she just knew the technopath could. That's what mutants were for if they weren't trying to take over the world and subjugate the human race, right?

Annie was getting ready to put a Help Wanted sign up in her store window. She didn't really need any extra hands, the store was small and got little traffic, but she thought it might be nice to have somebody to talk to during the day, and somebody who could trade off shifts with her so she wouldn't have to be at the store all the time.

Maybe even two people.

She was a little nervous about being the boss. It was one thing to be the boss when it was just you working, an entirely different thing when you had to actually tell people what to do. She thought that she could do it, though. But she was going to make sure to be really careful about who she hired, because she was not sure she could fire anyone if they didn't do something hugely bad.

The sign was being drawn by hand. Not because she couldn't afford one of those ones that you bought, she just felt like doing it herself. She wasn't the best artist in the world, but she could do lettering. Anyone could do lettering.

With the sign done, Annie placed it in the window. Next to the door. At right about eye level.

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.