DISCLAIMER: All characters and whatnot belong to Joss Whedon, any bizarre reference belongs to other owners of other rights. It's just something stupid-i-hope-fun that i wrote...try to just laugh and enjoy. -------------------------------- Mal remained optimistic that this job - for once - could go smoothly. The rest of the crew, however, saw that a young girls' fever and series of disturbing dreams were enough to distract them from their jobs at hand. Mal kept reminding himself that the job was an easy one. It should go smoothly. They weren't stealing anything, just moving boxes from one ship - that did the stealing already - to his ship and from there, to the planet. Some money would change hands and they would be off again. It wasn't hard. But River's dreams woke everyone. Not because her voice carried into their bunks, but because her sleepwalking carried her into their bunks. Mal had woken from a sound sleep to see the younger Tam standing over him, eyes closed, mumbling about people gone missing returning suddenly. Not much scared Mal to the point of jumping out of his bed anymore, but that had nearly done it. The fact that she had then turned and shuffled to the ladder brought him to his senses and he had then clambered out of bed and caught her just as she woke and fell over in surprise. She had been returned to her brother's care and Mal had spent the rest of the night on the bridge, trying to focus on the upcoming goods transfer. Jayne came grumbling in soon after, explaining his appearance by relating a similar experience to Mal's, and insisted he was locking the door to his bunk from that night on. Zoë and Wash seemed to have been spared the adventure of waking to a sleepwalking dreamer. *** They had securely docked with the small ship Rincewind; Simon remained with River in her bunk while crews of both ships transferred the shipment to Serenity's hold. Everything was going fine...until the Shepherd strolled over to Mal and asked him when Wojo was due in. The captain of the Rincewind, a guarded man by the name of Desorna, looked to Mal with sudden distrust. "Wojo?" Mal repeated, confusion fighting with frustration to take over his features. "Wait, that's not right," Book said, looking around. He seemed to see his surroundings for the first time then. He looked at Mal again, and frowned. "Where did your mustache go? And the tie?" he asked. "I'd hafta know what you're talkin' about first, Shepherd," Mal said, noticing the bright, unfocused eyes he was looking into. He turned to the other smuggling captain with half a smile. "Seems there was an illness on St Albans." "Illness," the captain responded warily. "Right." He motioned to his crew and they all stepped back from any Serenity crewmember they might have been nearer than necessary. "Mal...I...where's Barney?" Book laughed. "You don't suppose he--" "Jayne!" Mal called, cutting off the feverish man, "I think the Shepherd could use some help getting to his bunk." "I don't think you're wrong," Book mumbled, touching his head lightly as he swayed. He looked around him. "I thought I was...somewhere else..." "See here," Desorna said, turning to face Mal completely, "If you're not willin' to take this, leave it with us. We'll get it to Robards' man one way or th'other. You don't need to pull some niou-se like this just to--" "No, no," Mal responded. "I promise, it's just a little cold. Maybe a fever or two. It's nothing. I promise, there is no niou-se here." He smiled what he hoped was his trustworthy smile. It might have worked, too, if Book hadn't chosen that moment to vomit down the back of Mal's leg. He managed to keep a straight face a moment longer than Desorna, who finally looked down and turned grey at the sight. "There may be some...other symptoms...I was not aware of yet," Mal said tightly as Jayne finally retrieved the swaying preacher from Mal's shoulder. "But I'm gettin' reports regularly." "That is just disgustin," came Jayne's voice from behind Mal. Mal was quite sure he already knew how disgusting it was. Not only did it smell, but it was warm, too. "Y'see? Reports already," Mal continued, his voice becoming dangerously sharp, as Jayne led Book away from the scene. "It ain't contagious, is it?" Desorna asked, his eyes still on the mess Mal stood in. "Nope," Mal lied. "Not at all." He sincerely hoped it was even now weaving its ways past the Rincewind's crew's innoculation shots. It had found its ways through his crew's shots...he really wanted Desorna to have this close a bond with his own crew. Maybe even closer. "Then, how did--" the other captain began, his eyes finally raising past Mal's boots, but stopped when he saw Mal blinking at him. The smile was still in place. "It would seem the goods have stopped moving ships," Mal said brightly, looking away from Desorna finally. He saw that his boots were now the center of everyone's attention...even Wash and Zoë seemed transfixed. Zoë, shaking her head, finally broke the spell and started moving again, dragging Wash with her to the doors to the Rincewind. "Uh, we can, um, allow me t'get that next box for y'all," one of the other crewmembers said, trying to sound casual. Zoë waited, giving him her full attention. "A lady such as yerself, should, uh..." the man faltered. He had already seen Zoë carry several loads between ships. Now she was waiting for him to finish his sentence. He looked greyer than his captain. "Here," Kaylee's voice sounded from Mal's less vomited side. He turned to see she was holding a towel out to him, her face scrunched up from trying to not smell or look like she was scrunching her face. He accepted the towel gratefully. "I think things might move faster if my lads handed the boxes over," Desorna said in one breath, trying to sound less like he wanted to get away from Mal and the mess than he truly wanted. He moved backwards toward the door as his crew followed his lead. "We, uh, we can probably move faster that...um...that way," the crewmember who had stopped Zoë agreed. They nearly tripped over each other to return to the safety of their vomit-less ship. The crew of the Serenity simply stared after them. "Cowards," Wash said finally. "Every last one of them." "Yeah," Kaylee smiled at Mal, "You'd think they'd never seen someone get sick b'fore." Mal busied himself by trying to clean off his boots with the towel Kaylee had handed him. "This is why we were staying away from River," he muttered. "I gave orders on it." "She was havin' a hard time stayin' away from us," Jayne said, returning to the group. "I ain't the only one she visited in the night with her sleepwalkin' and talkin' in her sleep." "Jayne, you aren't afraid of a sick little girl," Zoë smiled. "Are ya?" "You didn't wake up to her starin' at you with her eyes closed tight!" Jayne snapped. "How is that possible, exactly?" Wash asked, looking from his wife to Mal to Kaylee. Jayne's response was cut short by Mal's voice. "We are not getting anyone else sick," he said, straightening from cleaning his boots. "Y'all stay away from Book and River. Leave the doctor to do his job. He gets sick, he takes care of it. It's what his job is. Our job is this. We do this job, we get Inara back on ship, we go to the next job. We don't have time to be sick." He looked each of them in the eye until they nodded and then sighed. "Now," he said, looking at the towel in his hands. "If you don't mind, I need to change into some cleaner pants and...possibly boots." "Seepin' in, sir?" Zoë asked, her face impassive, but her eyes laughing. "More like drippin' in," he corrected. "We can handle this, Cap'n," Kaylee offered, her voice light. "You go on and...change and...maybe shower." Mal turned to her, aghast. "What?" "Well...if it's drippin' in...it might be seepin' in and...you're smelly," she finally gave up and said it. "It's not me!" he argued. "It's the--the..." The Rincewind crew was returning with more boxes to tuck into the nooks and crannies of Serenity. Mal sighed and walked - carefully - out of the loading bay. He tried to not hear the laughter of his own crew as he left. -- niou-se = cow dung