Disclaimer of fun. Not mine. Dong ma?

My Goodness! Speculation if rife amongst you! From slaves to cheese…

Glad you liked it so far, and thanks for the reviews, but I regret to inform you that even I don't know what's in there yet. But I have a few ideas. I've written a load of short paragraphs, each with their own explanation. And yes, cheese was one of them. But not any more. I reckon that I'll just shove 'em all into a hat and pull one out when it comes to it.

And so… Chapter two…

Jayne grinned as he crammed as many guns and knives as possible into his shoulder bag. At first he had attempted to strap them all to his body, but even he could tell that people would be suspicious of a man who walked like he had serious bowel problems.

'I got gun, I got guns, I got ma ruttin' guns. And when I get paid, I'm gonna get a whore, I'm gonna get a whore, I'm gonna get a ruttin' whore. And when I get that whore I'm gonna get some…'

'Wow, you're even more obscene when you sing.'

Within seconds a gun was pointed at the doctor's head, and Jayne was silently cussing himself for letting the prissy, core bred hwoon dahn get so close unnoticed.

'What the hell are you doin' back here? You tryin' to get me to shoot ya? 'Cos I'll do that if you just ask me.'

'Sing again and I'll gladly shoot myself,' Simon grabbed his medical bag from beside the dining table walked out of the door.

Shoving the last two guns into the waistband of his trousers, Jayne hoisted his bag onto one shoulder, making a mental note to get the doctor back later.

xxx

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew was still following the Chinese man to wherever it was he was taking them.

As the distance between them and Serenity grew, so did the discomfort of the crew.

'I don't want to be seen as complainy here, but why couldn't we have stayed with the ship?' Wash asked his wife, who was asking herself the same question.

But, instead of voicing her concerns, she merely said 'The Captain knows what he's doing,' and carried on walking, leaving Wash to look hopelessly at her back.

Inside, however, her guts felt like a bag of snakes. She was regretting her earlier comment, and now decided that they had had a choice after all.

She fell back until she was level with the Captain, who was walking with a very confident swagger, though she didn't fail to notice that his hand rested very close to his gun.

'Sir?'

'Zoë,' Mal acknowledged her with a nod of the head.

'What's the plan here?'

'Plan? Plan is to get our money, get on Serenity and get off this rock.'

'And before all that happens?'

'We'll see how it goes. We ain't in any obvious danger. Yet.' He added as an after thought.

'Sir, is there a possibility that the plan might go ahead without anyone getting shot?'

Mal looked incredulously at his first mate.

'That'd be a no then would it, sir?'

Mal opened his mouth to remind Zoë what kind of jobs they did, when their guide stopped and shouted.

'See over there? That is where we are headed.'

As the party reached the top of the hill, they looked down the other side into a valley. In the valley was a bustling hive of activity. People shouted to each other, whilst traders tried to be heard over the noise by shouting louder still. Children screamed and laughed as they played games in the dusty streets and dogs barked as they passed each other.

'See, It's not far now,' the guide continued walking down the other side of the hill.

Mal turned as he felt a hand rest lightly on his arm, to find himself looking directly into the eyes of River.

'No flowers to die there. Just cut them off before they die. Only buds left to bloom.'

'Great. Thanks. I'll take that into account.' Mal turned to Kaylee. 'Keep an eye on her 'till the doctor gets here. Last thing we need is for people to try and burn her again.'

'Sure thing Captain.' Kaylee looked nervously at the young girl, 'does she seem right to you?'

'Kaylee, remember the bit where she's…?' Mal tapped his temple with his finger. 'She ain't never seemed right.'

'Yeah, but she seems even more… I dunno…' Kaylee chewed on her lip for a second. 'Like she really don't like it here. Like it ain't right.'

'Hell, Kaylee, It don't take a reader to know that there's a lot not right about all this. Now go make sure she doesn't freak out.' Mal lightly pushed the mechanic towards River, then picked up his stride until he was level with their guide.

'You seem to have lost some of your crew, Captain.'

'I hope you're as good at counting money as you are people.'

'And I hope that your tongue will not move so much when we get to my town.'

Mal rolled his eyes. He was in no mood to banter with some strange man who refused to give him his money, and he figured that he wasn't going to get much more out of him. Instead he dropped behind once again.

From where he was, back at the rear of the party, he could see what Kaylee had meant.

River was being exceedingly awkward, babbling non-stop about nothing at all, in an almost frenzied manner. Her walking was erratic and she weaved back and forth across the path. Getting just a bit closer, Mal could hear that she was still going on about cutting flowers, and he could also hear Kaylee's futile attempts at trying to calm River down.

'I think I should have gone back for the good doctor's bag, so he could have stayed with her,' the Shepherd also dropped back so he could talk to Mal.

'Well, what's done is done. He'll catch up with us soon enough.'

'All the same, I feel that maybe we should wait here until they do.'

'Right now, I don't ruttin' care what you feel. That man in front has our money and therefore also our food and fuel supply. We are not letting him out of our sight. Dong ma?'

The Shepherd sighed and walked faster to catch up with Kaylee and help her keep River calm enough. He had seen the guide give River some furtive glances, and was worried that if she got too out of control, more suspicion than they needed would be raised.

'Oh Shepherd, thank the Lord.' Kaylee beamed at him as he took River's arm and started to talk to her in his calming voice. 'Didn't know how long I was gonna be able to keep this up on my own. Could have done with some help earlier though.' Kaylee turned to look meaningfully at the Captain, who waved cheerfully back.

Kaylee stuck her tongue out playfully and then turned back to talk to Book. Before she could open her mouth, River screamed and grasped hold of the Shepherd's face in both hands.

'The withered rose! Don't be! Say that cutting flowers makes them stronger. But flowers are just flowers. They don't have blood and thoughts. So they don't think about the blood. They don't know, but we do…'

'Kaylee! Shepherd! Shut her up gorram it.' Mal ran forward as Wash and Zoë rushed back to where River was now sitting on the ground, still hanging onto Book's waist with both arms, sobbing into his trousers.'

'I sure wish Simon was here,' Kaylee stroked the younger girl's hair, and then slowly prised her fingers open until she was no longer held onto Book.

Suddenly there was a rustling from the bushes around them, and Wash looked up to see a dozen men step out, all with weapons levelled at the group.

'For the first time ever, I sure wish Jayne was here.'

xxx

'Where are we?' Simon leaned against a tree. 'Not that I'm not enjoying your company, but will we be joining up with anyone else anytime soon?'

Jayne, grinded his teeth together and clenched his fist. 'If you don't shut your gorram mouth, the only one you'll be joining up with is God.'

Simon raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Instead he looked around the clearing in which they stood. Trees, trees, trees and oh, more trees surrounded them, and to Simon, all directions looked the same.

'Remind me again why we didn't stay on the path?'

'Shut. Your. Gorram. Face.'

'Ah yes, because you, the great and mighty tracker had to try a different way.'

'Listen up doctor, I don't like you and you don't like me…'

'My goodness, aren't we observant today,' Simon was fed up and tired, two things that were making him say things he might regret later.

'My point is, I've got these,' Jayne shook his bag, 'and that makes me in charge. So if I tell you to shut your ruttin' mouth, your ruttin' mouth will do exactly that. Dong ma?' Jayne hefted Vera to underline his point.

'We go that way.'

'What's that way?'

Jayne didn't answer, but levelled his favourite gun at the medic.

Simon sighed and started walking, acutely aware that the merc still had Vera pointed at his back, 'Great, of all the people I had to get lost with…'

AN. So there we have it. This is really just a filler chapter to get some exposition out there and just to keep me going with this. I such a hard time writing this, total writers block, so again, it comes across as a bit clunky (at least I feel it does, as my biggest critic.) But, they'll get to the village (bar our two mismatched explorers) in the next chapter and all becomes clear…

I would also just like to say that I currently have no beta. Though one of my friends has offered, she is quite busy, and I would be very grateful for some help from one of you wonderful people.