OUT OF GAS

Chapter 1: The Change

As they entered the shuttle her brother looked to her for a moment but seemed unperturbed by her seating choice. She was directly beside the door, the door closed only by her say-so when she pressed the button her brother placed the items in his hands down by the door as Wash headed toward the control panel with a small wink in her direction as he did. When she couldn't sleep at night she would sneak out of her room and join him on the bridge, he was teaching her some of the technical tricks of flying, even let her fly the ship herself once or twice. "Want to press that button for me kiddo?" he asked nodding his head at the door close button. She looked out into the bay of the ship she had come to call home to see Captain Reynolds standing in the middle of the bay looking at Inara's shuttle as the doors close. His patient brown eyes then looked to their shuttle as the other flew off clearly waiting for them to do the same.

Her eyes froze locked on hers and she tilted her head to the side reaching her hand out the door and touching the ship with her hand gently. "Kiddo?" Wash inquired after her; she turned back and saw her brother looking at her concerned.

"Ok," she replied standing, she pressed the large red button to close the doors, it took them three seconds to close and when the door was at two she slipped through ignoring Simon's shout. Outside the door she took to the control panel as she heard the Captain's boots banging up the metal stairs clearly intending to put her back on the shuttle but with a small giggle she pressed the enter button on the control panel re-configuring the launch codes, it would take Wash and Kaylee days to fix what she had done in minutes. She heard Malcolm curse as she scurried over to the other side to do the same to the docking station for Inara's shuttle as well.

"The hell is the matter with you!" he shouted pressing random buttons on the panel hoping to fix the mess she had made. He turned and glared at her and she smiled back turning in a large circle ad made her way down the stairs. He slammed his hands into the railing and took off after her grabbing her by the arm when she hit the belly of the ship.

"Captains don't go down with the ships anymore… why did they before?" she asked him her eyes wide and curious. "They're just pieces of metal or wood, why die with it when you can be saved?"

"The emotion of it I suppose." He answered after a moment; she had answered a question he had been asking himself since he realized that he could not leave Serenity. "When you're connected to something as strongly as I am to her, she's given me everything."

"You answered your own question." She told him, "Serenity saved me too." With that she was off skipping back through the rooms, it would be a few hours before the cold would be overwhelming and she wanted to take advantage of that time. She knew Simon had probably found her note and was about to call the bridge so she made her way there knowing the captain was still standing dumbfounded in the middle of the room. She curled herself underneath the co-pilot's chair almost invisible and stayed there as she heard the message alert start echoing through the ship.

"Moonbrain now I got to deal with a pain in the ass doctor complaining at me about his damn sister he can't near control anyway." He pressed the button connecting him to the video screen of the shuttle he could see hovering in front of the ship.

"Get her back!" were the first shouted words he heard from Simon Tam. "I want my sister on this shuttle right now!"

"Well far as I can see she's made it pretty certain that isn't going to happen doc." He replied hunched over the screen as calm as he could be.

"She's out of her mind she doesn't know what she's done." River huffed under the chair and the captain immediately looked to her his eyebrows furrowing.

"Seems she does there doctor and I don't take kindly to you yelling at me from my own shuttle on to my ship, your sister isn't coming back to you and my mate needs help. Wash I'm ordering you to take that ship out and tie up the doctor if you got too get Zoe somewhere safe if you can."

"Got it Captain." Wash replied with a small nod. Malcolm cut the power to the video screen and turned to face the chair that he could see a bit of River's leg but none of her face. He rolled his eyes and spoke instead to where he thought her head might be.

"Want to explain what that meant, when you said Serenity saved you too." He looked at the chair and saw one of her eyes poke around the right side of the chair.

"Why?" she asked softly her voice a bit more lucid then it tended to be apparently making her own decisions made the girl a bit more sane than normal.

"Because I don't rightly understand you sometimes and I figure this might just be something we'd have in common and since there's a fair chance with might just die here on this boat I'd like to know the person I'm dyin' with." He answered, the rest of her head poked around the chair and he was struck again but just how pretty the girl was. She and the doc were dead ringers for each other but her features were a bit more delicate for someone crazy as a bat she sure was pretty.

"Bats aren't crazy." She informed him climbing into the chair and pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them. "I'm safe here, even when I'm not I am. If I left here I wouldn't be safe without it but Simon would be safe without me."

"Your brother's a fugitive too." He told her, "I imagine he won't be safe anywhere with or without you."

"He can change himself and make himself different. Sometimes I forget parts of me and I would be too risky that's why we stay on the ship I would forget parts of me." She answered the sadness in her voice overwhelming.

"I'm sorry about that, feel as though it might be my fault but never got a chance to talk to you about it."

"Would have been crazy anyway." She replied smiling lightly at him. "It's why you're afraid to talk to me you think you opened the crate early and that made me worse but you're wrong I'm very grateful the bad things happened in there more then they happened anywhere else."

"You were awake?" he asked. The doctor had told them she had been asleep for near two weeks in that little crate.

"Don't tell Simon." She informed him and with that she made her way off the bridge her head down and steps though graceful as always heavy with her thoughts. Malcolm turned back to the bridge and chose to give her the time she needed as he watched the shuttle disappear in the distance.