Disclaimer: Alright, everyone/thing but Analith is Joss'... duh...

A Brief Bio of Ana: My person, right. (Have to make up my own people for everything... *dodges as pottery is thrown at her*) She is part human-from-Earth, part human-from-someplace-else-that-is-actually-different-from-Earth. (wow, I'm really descriptive...) Anyhow. She's a 'space pirate' sorta, but her reputation is vague, she's pretty good at stealing stuff so not a lot of people find out it was her. After a deal with a man named Luke (no Star Wars reference here people) goes bad, she decides that she doesn't really want to be much of a pirate anymore and is something of a hitchhiker until this story pops along... wheeeee...

***

Malcolm Reynolds heard the door of Serenity opening and watched with a lifted eyebrow as Wash dragged in the body of a woman who might as well have been dead.

“And who is that?” he asked, watching with suppressed curiosity as the pilot examined her face, which was scratched, bruised, and extremely dirty.

“No idea,” Wash replied. “I stumbled on her while I was out with the scanner looking for your little treasure,”

“It isn’t a treasure,” Mal growled. “It’s important. Why did you bring her in here? She looks dead,” “She’s not. When I found her she was conscious, and she asked me to help her. Then she passed out. I think it’s heat exhaustion or something,”

“Mm hmm. Let’s take her to the infirmary, let Simon have a look at her,” he said. When they got her on a bed, Mal looked at her. She was a well-built woman, sure enough. Tall, with long legs, a strong chin and collarbone. Her hair was dark and fairly short- about half an inch below her jaw. Her skin was alabaster pale- where it wasn’t burnt from the sun. She was clothed in a tank top type thing, an extremely baggy pair of men’s trousers that were tucked into leather work boots, and a short glove on one hand, its fingers cut off at the knuckles. She had a standard issue pistol tucked into one pocket. Simon drew it out carefully.

“She won’t be needing this,” he said, and began examining the burns on her shoulders and arms.

“These are pretty severe. She’ll live, sure enough. Give me a couple of hours to patch her up and she’ll be fine,” Mal look a little perturbed. “What if we need to leave before a couple of hours?” Simon shrugged. “Who knows how long she’ll be unconscious, anyway,” he offered. Mal and Wash went back to the cockpit.

“If that girl turns out to be a pain in the ass, Wash…”

“I don’t think it’ll be a big deal, Captain,”

~

“Uhn,” moaned Analith as the world slowly took shape before her eyes. The world wasn’t exactly as she remembered it…

There was a face hanging over her. “How do you feel?” it asked. “Hungry…” she managed to say through her parched lips. The face gave a laugh. “Alright then…” She moved her hand to massage her forehead and saw that it was plastered with bandages.

“What…”

“You were rather badly burned,” The face was over at the other side of the room, fixing a cup of chamomile tea. She could smell it. She could also smell chocolate…

There was another face. Only she liked this one better. Much better.

“Simon, how’s the invalid?” it asked- she like the voice better too. “Just woke up, Mal,” the first face replied. Mal and Simon… “And she’s hungry, which is a good sign,” Simon was bringing the tea and chocolate bar over.

“Here. You need some caffeine,” Ha handed it to her, and she drank the tea and ate a huge chunk of chocolate.

“What’s your name?” asked Mal. “Analith,” she replied, sipping the tea again. “Why were you on that planet?”

“Got left there,”

“By who?”

“Luke,”

“Uh huh. Why?”

“He wasn’t happy with my work. Dumped me on the nearest planet and went. About died out there,”

“Wasn’t happy with your work? What work?”

“Didn’t steal enough for him, the greedy little prick,” She finished the tea and chocolate. Her dark eyes danced over Mal. Hmm, she thought. Nice pants…

“Steal?”

“I’m a pirate. Er, was a pirate,” Mal looked at Simon. “Jesus. Another fugitive on our hands,”

“Not really. I’m too good at it. They never caught me, not once,”

“Yeah. Well, I guess you’re officially on board Serenity now,” Mal turned to leave, Simon took the teacup away.

“Doesn’t like me,” Analith said to herself. Simon returned with more bandages and some ointment stuff. “I think he does like you, that’s why he let you stay so easy, with so little information,” He began to replace the bandages, smearing on the ointment.

“That smells terrible,” Analith said.