A/N Sorry such a short chapter, but I got this one up quick - two in two days (patting myself on the back here) - so it's like you got a really long chapter. Yeah, whatever sounds better. Hope you enjoy. (there's a bit of a twist)

Love

Her head ached fiercely. There was a luminous glow beyond her eyelids and she heard a humming in her ears, growing louder as though a shuttle was landing only feet from where she stood. The noise faded out again and she could hear a man speaking softly in the background.

"… think she's coming to, now."

"Simon?" She blinked into the lights as she opened her eyes.

"Lie back down. You collapsed. I'm just taking your pulse now." She looked up at him as he counted silently, watching the seconds tick by on his old-fashioned pocket watch. "You didn't hit your head. Still, you may have a concussion. Do you remember where you are?"

"My shuttle," Inara answered softly. She was mentally counting the days since leaving the compound on Perth.

"And the day?"

"It's Wednesday. Simon, I'm fine. Really."

"It's Thursday."

"Then I've missed an engagement," she said lightheartedly. "Simon, let me sit up." Inara swung her legs over the edge of the bed slowly, pushing up on her right elbow. The effort it took winded her; a wave of dizziness settled over her and seemed to take up residence.

"Carefully, please."

"Yes, Doctor," she answered sharply, glaring up at him. There was only so much time one could spend in a confined space with Simon – or maybe her practiced patience was finally beginning to give way to their circumstances. "Where is Jayne?"

"Hunting," Simon answered tensely.

"For what?"

"Three guesses. Mine would be liquor, women or food – not necessarily in that order." Inara rolled her eyes in exasperation. "A part. A three-way catalytic fusion regulator."

Inara's eyes brightened. "Is that it? Will that get us airborne again?"

"According to Alan."

They had spent the last three months grounded due to mechanical issues with the shuttle. It wasn't designed to be away from its parent ship for such long periods. Add to that its inability to travel long distances as a standard short-range shuttle and their ever dwindling lack of funds, and the last five months of their lives had been very interesting – bouncing from planetoid to moon to skyplex, all while trying to stay low profile. The last thing they needed, as crippled as they already were, was an Alliance patrol taking notice of them.

"Where is he?"

"Right here," Alan answered from behind her.

"Well, where the guay is she?" Mal saw Kaylee flinch and felt sorry for it, but he was stretched thin these days, and shamed to say it wasn't the worst his mechanic had gotten from him of late.

"It's River, Cap'n."

"Meanin' you don't know?"

"Meanin' that, yeah," Kaylee bit back at him. She kept to her work, tightening a junction under the coil-lock release shaft. She was nearly dwarfed under the slim cylindrical mechanism, she'd lost so much weight. But the last few months had been hard on all of 'em.

Mal turned silently and walked out, not knowing what words to offer her for the thousandth time, that likely wouldn't do any good once he'd spoken them anyway. Instead he headed for the cockpit.

Zoe sat quietly in Wash's old seat, looking down at her lap. There she held a flimsy off the cortex that Mal was having trouble reading from his angle looking over her shoulder.

"You seen the little one?"

"Oh, yes," Zoe said quietly.

"Well?"

"Don't know where she got herself to, but she handed me this 'fore she went." She passed Mal the flimsy and watched the look of acceptance cross his features.

"Huh." He passed the article back to Zoe before heading wordlessly for River's bunk.

There was no answer to his steady knock and he let himself in. He'd learned long time back that River was the only crewmember to not lock their bunk when they weren't in it. Guess she had nothing to hide.

The lights were out, 'cept the string that hung crossways over her bed, highlighting the trees in the background. Her .38 was home on its nightstand and her combats peaked out from under a small pile of cast off clothing. Mal smiled to himself thinking that even at it's messiest she still had the cleanest bunk on the ship. There was no desk or spare chair in the room, so he took up a seat on her latrine.

Mal let loose a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and dropped his shoulders, resting his head in his hands. The rope, pulled taut these last five months, had finally snapped. He knew it was only a mater of time.

A few days after the raid of the Perth Compound, the Alliance had released a list of prisoners associated with the militia group that had been captured there. Next was the absence of the militia leader, Richard Alan, and the rumor that he had escaped on an unidentified shuttle only hours before Alliance forces penetrated the militia's defenses. This was followed by other to-be-expected Alliance propaganda. Still, it had given the crew some hope that their missing members had managed to stay with the shuttle and would wave as soon as they could.

But hours soon turned to days and one day turned to seven, and Mal couldn't afford to keep his ship and his crew drifting on the outskirts of the White Sun System waiting for word. He reached out to a few contacts, made a few waves. It was time to go back to work.

After the first job with Monty, River had taken her cut and launched the shuttle in the middle of the night cycle. Mal was beside himself – fury, anger, concern, you gorram name it. "What did you do?" Kaylee had asked frantically when she learned River was gone. Mal sat up all that night and into the late morning, studying River's room, her sketches, anything that might tell him where she'd gone and why. She found him propped against the wall and her bed, sitting on the floor, asleep.

"Please leave. I don't want to speak to you."

"Just where the ruttin' hell've you been?" Mal had jumped to his feet and taken hold of her by the shoulders. She shrugged him off near effortlessly and handed him a slim data tablet. "Skyplex," she'd told him. The tablet had already been used to search the Alliance Blotter on the cortex.

Life had moved forward, as much as could be expected, over the next few months. Kaylee took to sleepin' in her engine room hammock and River could be found with her data tablet practically stitched to her hand. Zoe'd been the most resilient of them all, mother hen to Kaylee and River alike. She took most of the mess rotation and tried to keep a light conversation when they weren't talking as to a job.

Between jobs, though… Bushes were beat till anything that could be considered news of the missing crew was flushed out. Leads led from moon to moon, all the way across the system once, but they never seemed to go anywhere. Still, the data tablet never left River's side.

Which was why it struck Mal as a bad sign that it was lying on her pillow top in her bunk when she was obviously not there.

For the past five months they had all held onto the hope that they would reunite with Simon, Inara and Jayne soon enough. Though the possibility remained, however unspoken, that that wouldn't – couldn't – happen. Mal thought about the flimsy Zoe had showed him and he sighed heavily. He needed to see River now, more than just to have her set course off planet – he needed to gauge her stability, her reaction to the news. He'd wait all night if he had to. It wouldn't be the first time.

River climbed the steps down into her bunk, already knowing what to expect. She cringed mentally when she heard his unconscious thoughts. Good broadcaster, the Captain. He was sitting on her toilet, slumped against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.

"Captain," she announced herself. He nearly fell from the stool.

"Hi…. Yeah. You're, uh, back."

"Yes."

"Where were ya at?"

"Suplies," she motioned to the bag of new toiletries on the floor near the wash sink.

"Oh. I… spect we all could use some." Mal stood looking at the bag near his feet. Like so many times before, he didn't know what to say. "Zo… showed me…" He looked up to see what emotions crossed her face.

Her mouth turned downwards at the tide she felt sweeping in at his words. For the past five months she had been walking a tight rope, and with the weight of something as simple as the article she'd crossed on the cortex this morning, she had finally toppled. She shut her eyes hard and wrapped her arms around herself. The girl would not do this. Would not break like this. Not in front of him. Not this second. But the tears were coming, screaming silently though the girl's head and dropping like bombs to the cold metal floor beneath her bare feet.

Mal saw the silent sob escape her lips and, without thinking he closed the space between them. She was breaking. She pushed against him but without any real force, and he realized that this was the first time he had held her since the morning they hit Perth's orbit five months ago. He lowered them both to the ground and held her tighter as he felt her gasps deepen and the tears begin to soak into his shirt.

"They're alive," she choked out. "They're alive, Mal. And we can find them. We're going to find them."

"I know. Fang xin, boa bai. Shhh, now. We will find 'em."

Guay – hell

Fang xin, boa bai – don't worry, sweetheart