Disclaimer: I am a high school senior, all I own are copies of Serenity, Firefly and Dark Angel Season 1. Everything else is owned by James Cameron and Joss Whedon, I only wish I owned Firefly.

Spoilers: Some for Serenity

Pairings (by request): mal/inara vaguely,

Simon/ kaylee

Zoe/Wash (yes I know he's dead)

River? (I don't want to spoil it)

jayne/charlie (SPOILER)

Jayne paced impatiently outside the infirmary. It had taken a lot of convincing before Mal would believe him that he had had nothing to do with the girl's injuries. Mal had been raised to see the abuse of a woman as the antithesis of everything he believed. In the end, only the fact that the girl's wounds were relatively old had prevented Mal from shooting Jayne or throwing him out the airlock.

Inside the room, Simon was trying to figure out the results of the girl's blood tests. His scans showed some confusing facts about the girl's past.

The girl bolted straight up on the table. "Jayne!" she screamed, panicking. Simon moved to calm her, but she easily tossed him aside.

The giant merc rushed into the room. "I'm here." The girl calmed down immediately when he ran over and held her.

Mal, who had come running at the sound of the girl's scream and the subsequent crash of Simon hitting one of the cabinets, stopped in the doorway. He stood there confused for a few seconds, marveling at the strange scene before him. His hired gun was holding onto a clearly terrified young woman who was sitting on the med table in ripped military clothing. And his doctor was sitting amidst fallen medicine bottles and scans.

"Would anyone care to explain what's goin' on?" He said in his best mean old man voice.

"Don't look at me Captain." Simon said, climbing gingerly to his feet. "Her tests just confused me more."

"You ran tests on me ?" The girl cried, throwing off Jayne's arms and leaping off the table to land smoothly across the room.

Simon sputtered. "With your injuries you should be barely able to walk, let alone do gymnastics!"

"I heal quickly." The girl said," I'll be good as new in a week or two."

Mal turned to Simon. "What did her tests show Doc?"

Simon looked down at his scans. "I don't know." When Mal raised an eyebrow, he continued. "Her DNA is odd, like she's not entirely human. Her bones are lighter than anyone's I've ever seen, but are stronger. The list goes on, I don't know where to start."

"Odd?" Jayne looked at the girl in front of him, poised as if to fight all who came at her. "Not human?"

The girl looked at him then forced herself to relax. "I will explain."

"Someone ought to!" mal said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I'm not human. Well, not entirely." She sighed. "I am a X-5, a custom made super-soldier for the Earth-that-was."

"A X-5?" Simon gasped. "That's not possible, they are a myth."

"You've hear of them before?" Jayne asked, eyeing the doctor. "Where?"

"In med academy, I did a paper on the myth. They were supposed to be beautiful but deadly creatures, created by scientists and raised as soldiers." Simon shook his head. "I laughed, the very idea seemed ludicrous."

"Yep. Ludicrous." The girl laughed. "Well ludicrous or not, here I am, X5-622 in the flesh."

"622?" Jayne asked, half under his breath.

"My designation." She smiled wryly. "Charlie to my friends."

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed this so far, I'm glad you like it, future chapters will be coming at you pretty quickly.