Wash was unceremoniously handcuffed and searched. When it was determined he was unarmed and not dangerous, he was ordered to processing. The last thing he saw before he was escorted away by four armed guards was one man pulling the trigger disc out of the console and smashing it to pieces on the floor.

He closed his eyes and silently prayed it had broadcasted long enough to get the message out.

His will was stronger now than the first time he'd been held by Blue Sun, but as he was forced down into an interrogation chair and injected with a sedative, he quickly remembered how exhausting the processing could be. He knew being stronger now meant they could break him harder.

They also now knew he had information they wanted.

Londinium was no backwater planet. Being in the basement of the Blue Sun Corporation meant there was no limit to how they could extract the information they wanted. He closed his eyes as the sedative needle slipped out of his arm, focuseing hard on the image of Mal and Zoe in his mind.

He didn't regret what he'd done, nor did he regret risking his life for the mission. He only hoped that Mal wouldn't get himself and the crew caught and killed trying to find out what happened to him.

As the sedative began to take effect, he clutched his hands into fists. He prayed he could get through this interrogation without compromising the safety of the crew. His breathing drew slowly as his senses dulled. His hands loosened as the fight ebbed out of him. The sound of the steel doors sliding open made him flinch, but he kept his eyes tightly closed and forced himself to picture Mal and Zoe laughing together.

Footsteps approached his chair and came to a halt. There was a period of silence as the new arrival waited for Wash to open his eyes. When he didn't, the man cleared his throat. "Number 1020," he mused as though reading something. "Hoban Washburne."

Pages began to turn, rustling softly in the quiet room. "Husband to one Zoe Alleyne, first mate of Serenity, and pilot for Malcolm Reynolds, captain of Serenity, both former volunteers for the Independents. You associate with a most questionable crowd."

Wash's eyes flickered open, and he took in the man before him. He was in his late forties with peppered grey-blond hair and a small, pug-like nose. His eyes were dark and unreadable, but he was smiling. Wash kept his eyes off the man's face; his hands were far more important, holding a small paper tablet with the information he was quoting.

The man wore a nondescript dark suit with a white dress shirt beneath it. He seemed like any number of interrogators Wash had seen before, except this man wore what appeared to be blue latex gloves on his hands.
--

That night he was thrown into a high security prison cell. There were no Alliance guards, just strategically positioned observation robots. Mechanical locks shut the thick steel door to his room as soon as he was thrown inside. If he had neighbors in the cells beside him, he had no way of finding out; the walls were thick and soundproof.

The room was dark and spartan, lit dimly by two unwavering overhead lights. He had a slab for a bed and a toilet-sink combo, nothing else. His head pounded from the interrogation and the sedative, but he struggled to remain awake. He knew if he fell asleep, he'd be weaker when he awoke; he had to endure the pain for now and sleep only when it subsided. After a few hours, a mechanical arm lowered food to him from a mechanism in the ceiling, setting a tray of protein gruel on the floor. He ignored it.

He had somehow resisted the questioning. It was clear they knew he had information they wanted, but it was also clear they didn't mind killing him before they retrieved it. He wondered if they'd just bring him back to life again if he died.

The questions had been focused: "How did you find River Tam?" "What did she tell you about the subliminal messages?" Wash wondered if they realized he probably knew more about all of that than she did. "What else did she tell you about Miranda?" The questions went on, broaching topics that he didn't even know.

Never once did they ask, "where is River Tam now?"

Dragging his exhausted body onto the steel slab bed, he stretched out and stared at the ceiling. It was hard to believe he was back in a place like this, even if this room was steel and gray unlike his other cell. He still wore his fancy Core suit instead of some prison-issued uniform, but he doubted they'd keep him out of one for long.

He knew they were going to break him or kill him trying. He could only hope he died before he let the secrets slip.

Sleep found him there on the bench, filling his mind with dreams of Reavers and the screaming moan of Serenity crashing.
--

He was pulled out of bed a scant two hours later and strapped back into the chair. He was used to this procedure by now. The questions were largely the same, but the methods of extracting the information changed. With the sedative pumped into his veins again, he was unable to resist or fight back as they inflicted pain upon him.

The man with the blue gloves returned, this time with a silent partner. The first man never introduced him; he only spoke of River and Blue Sun and Miranda. The man was pleasant, but his outward kindness belied the evil inside him. He would tell Wash things would be all right in one breath, while in the next he'd hold out a thin silver rod that, when activated, sent a burning jolt through Wash's spine.

By the end of the session, Wash's nose was dripping blood onto his slate grey suit. His eyes ached as though he'd left them open during a sand storm, and his body felt raggedy and heavy. Never once was he physically touched, but he felt he had been flogged and beaten.

The man with the blue hands smiled serenely and reassured Wash he would break eventually, if not in two.

Wash passed out as soon as he got to his cell, even though he wanted to stay awake and fight off the pain. He was stronger than before, but he still wasn't strong enough. He knew as well as they did it wouldn't be long.
--

He awoke feeling better although not refreshed. New food had been lowered into his room while he slept, though he had no idea how long ago it had arrived or even how long he had been sleeping. The food, which might have once been hot, was cold to the touch now. He ate it anyway.

Time passed, and no one came for him. He felt like he'd slept for several hours but thought it must have only seemed that way. He expected to be picked up for interrogation again soon. Their early regimen, he remembered, was to give him just enough rest to carry on but not enough to be rested. That had seemed the tactic when he'd been questioned the second time, only hours after the first. The Alliance men were skilled at waking him out of a deep sleep just to hound him with more unanswerable questions. It properly upset his sleep cycle and made him more prone to reveal truths he'd otherwise keep quiet.

Time was hard to measure in the cell, but he paced and counted in his head to know that hours had passed. They didn't call upon him again, and it unsettled him.

Food was lowered again some time later, still warm when it arrived. Wash took it and sat on the slab to eat. He pondered why he hadn't been extracted again. He had told them nothing of relevance during his interrogation, and he had gotten the distinct impression they would be questioning him again soon and repeatedly.

He hadn't expected to get more than an hour or two of sleep before the next interrogation, yet he had been up nearly eight hours without any sign from anyone, save the food drop. The worst of the pain had faded, leaving only a hollow, numb sensation at the base of his skull. It seemed strange they would allow such a lapse.

He found it worrisome.
--

He didn't know the exact moment Serenity's clearance codes on Londinium expired, but after sleeping another eight hours or so and eating again, Wash figured the time was long since up. That meant either Serenity had been forced to leave Londinium without him, or they stayed and risked being arrested. He hoped they had left him, although deep in his heart he figured they wouldn't.

It frightened him to think Mal might risk himself and the crew to rescue him, but it also gave him a warm glow deep in his stomach. He only hoped that the rescue attempt succeeded and that the crew wasn't captured themselves.

In the down time, he determined the intervals between meals were approximately four hours. Based on that, he more or less calculated how much time had passed. The math did little to appease the agitation growing in him. Why hadn't Mal come for him? Why hadn't the Blue Sun men questioned him more? He tried various scenarios in his mind, but only one seemed to fit:

River had been captured.

There was no way to confirm or deny this; he had no one to ask. There was no way he could even really guess; it was the only thing that made sense and answered all his questions. His gut didn't tell him it was true, but it was logical. And if they were captured, then he had to escape and rescue them.

He took stock of what he had in his possession. As they had never strip-searched him or put him in a prison uniform, he still had almost everything he had entered the complex with. He had long since shed his coat and tie, but he had them both on his bed, his jacket folded up to serve as a pillow. In addition, he had his shoes, socks, underwear, pants, dress shirt and tank top. Dress aside, he had a small pair of cufflinks and nothing else. His briefcase and everything else of use had been confiscated, and, of course, his sunglasses had been destroyed in the explosion.

He pawed through his clothes absently, having removed all of them but his pants and the tank top. He sat cross-legged on the slab and fondled the tie. It was silky smooth and cool to the touch. It had stopped broadcasting commercials some time ago, likely due to depth of the facility, but the computer chip inside it was the best bet he had.

Using the t-bar on the cufflinks, he managed to rip through the fabric that stitched the tie together and carefully laid it out to investigate its inner workings. The technology was microscopic, and even if he could have seen the circuitry, he had nothing remotely small enough to use as a tool. Still, he fiddled with it, as there was little else he could do to occupy his time. Eventually he managed to make it switch on and off, although the most it did was display a "Searching for Signal" error.

If prisoners could escape prisons just by rewiring their neckties, he knew they'd be breaking out all the time. He fiddled with the tie for several hours but eventually gave up. There was nothing he could do with it. Even if he'd had all the tools and parts he could ever want, there was little hope that he could use it to break out of the cell.

He sat and put it back together, and then he paced. He exercised, and he waited. He sang songs softly and at the top of his lungs. He recounted stories and jokes, and he sat for hours in silence. He laughed at the absurdity of his situation, and he prayed for the success of his mission.

He never cried.
--

On the fourth day, a service robot entered his cell through a drop-down hatch in the ceiling. She was a cleaning model, just a torso and arms connected to a long shaft that lowered from the ceiling to dangle her above the floor. She was silver and more machine than person, but she had a human-esque face and arms.

She seemed genuinely surprised to find him in the room though his attempts to speak to her went unanswered. She simply gave him a short apology for interrupting and began to clean the toilet and the sink. Wash sat on the bed and watched her, curiously studying the shaft that led from her body into the ceiling. There was probably a maintenance duct overhead that she traveled along from room to room. He wondered if it was possible to access it from inside his cell.

She finished with the toilet and began to polish the burnished steel floor. He crossed his legs and pondered how he could overpower the robot. Even if he couldn't get up the shaft into the maintenance duct, an attack would probably alert security. He wasn't entirely sure why he wanted to be remembered, but he supposed if he weren't getting dragged out of his cell on the occasion, he'd have no chance to learn the lay of the land. That would hinder him greatly if he later managed to escape.

Picking up the tie, he snapped it once between his hands, preparing to wrap it around the robot. At least that would give him an anchor to hold on to as she ascended back into the shaft. He waited until she straightened before getting to his feet. Wrapping the end of the tie around his fists for stability, he lunged forward and roped the tie around the robot.

She jerked up immediately and swiveled around to look at Wash. "You are not authorized to do that," she announced in a smooth, melodic female voice.

Instead of sounding an alarm or disappearing up into the ceiling with Wash still attached, she simply used her mechanical arms to pull him off. Wash wasn't strong enough to resist the force of a robot, and before he knew it, she had deposited him back on his bed, scattering his clothes. "Please refrain."

She swiveled back around, took assessment of the room, and nodded. When she did, the maintenance doors overhead opened, and she disappeared through them.

Wash cursed softly and stared up at the panel where she had gone. There was no way he could reach it. The ceiling was at least three meters high, and he had nothing to stand on. Even on the bed, he couldn't get anywhere near the ceiling door, which was in the center of the room. Dejected, Wash sat down.

Torture was bad enough, but at least then he knew he was keeping important information from Blue Sun. Having been forgotten was worse; it felt like the information he knew was useless now. It frightened him. When he thought about River and the rest of the crew possibly having to endure any of the interrogations he'd gone through, it made his vision start to blur. He didn't understand the situation. If they had River, why wouldn't they just kill him? If they didn't want the information he had, why would they keep him alive?

Fear and anger welled within him and propelled him to his feet.

"Let me out of here!" he screamed suddenly. He ran to the thick steel doors and banged on them. "Take me!" he screamed. "Just leave them alone!"

His fists made low, deep sounding thuds on the doors. He continued banging for over an hour until his hands throbbed in pain. He sank to his knees on the floor and rested his brow against the cool steel. He forced himself not to cry, because crying meant he gave up. He was determined to never give up.

When the ceiling hatch opened again moments later to deliver his food, he lashed out at it with his feet. He kicked the tray, knocking over the bowl and spilling food everywhere. Screaming again, he got to his feet, snatched up the tray, and began pounding on the door with it.

The tinny sound carried a little further, but still no one came.
--

The fifth day, the cleaning robot did not return, and no breakfast came. The spilled food from the day before remained where Wash had kicked it. He sat curled against the steel door, the tray clutched to his chest. He had fallen asleep there and found no reason to get up.

Eventually, nature demanded it, and he crossed to the toilet to relieve himself. He stroked his chin and frowned at the stubble. In the past, not shaving hadn't offended him, not even during his previous Alliance capture, but now it did. He had never been fastidious about shaving, but the growth on his chin was just another sign he'd been in the room well over Serenity's twenty-four hour grace period. He didn't want the crew to come for him, but he was crushed all the same that they hadn't.

He eventually cleaned up the food mess with his dress shirt. He scooped up the bits of food and flung them into the toilet. When he flushed, he watched the water swirl away with a curious tilt of his head. Then, he pushed the shirt into the sink and washed it as best he could without soap.

When that was done, he stripped and washed the rest of his clothes, which had begun to smell a little ripe. He tried to clean himself as well but had little success with ice-cold water and no means to dry himself. His hair dye stained the sink brown and left dark streaks as it ran down his face. After that, he stopped bothering.

When he was done, he sat on the bed completely undressed while waiting for his clothes to dry. He absently scanned the ceiling and walls for cameras but didn't much care if they saw him. He pulled the reassembled tie on, draping it to cover as much of his purpled scar as possible, and sat with his back to the wall.

Lunch never arrived, and his clothes dripped messy, slippery puddles onto the steel floor. He got up only to use the bathroom and pull on his underwear once dry. After that, he tried not to think of his hunger.

He didn't want to starve to death.

By the time his supper should have arrived, his clothes had finished drying. Need a semblance of civilization, he put the entire suit back on right down to the cufflinks. It itched and felt tighter; he was aware, too late, that the expensive suit was dryclean only. He laughed a little at the thought. He was glad to know he could still find things funny.

"I sure hope you guys aren't next door," he muttered to himself before he slumped back against the wall.

Sleep didn't come to him for a long time that night. When it finally did, he had unpleasant dreams of Mal and River being tortured side-by-side while Zoe just stood back and watched.
--

On the sixth day, he awoke from the dreams sweaty and unsettled. He pulled off the coat and balled it against the bed to pace. His neck hurt from sleeping on it wrong, and he felt filthy. He desperately wanted to shower. He wondered if this was the Alliance's ploy to break him: leave him alone without any knowledge of what had happened to the crew or the message he'd risked their lives to get out.

It if was, it was working.

His hunger was starting to affect him, too, and he wondered how long they'd let him go before feeding him again. He knew they must, eventually. He concluded that if they had River and had gotten the information from her, then they wouldn't need him. They had made no secret of their desire to kill him his first day. Since he was still alive, that gave him reason to believe either she was resisting or maybe, against all odds, they didn't have her.

Either way, the Alliance had to feed him eventually if they wanted him alive enough to tell his secrets. Breaking his spirit with no socialization and no food seemed like a very apt method of torture, but considerably slow for Blue Sun's taste. He hoped that just meant the message had gotten out and they were busy elsewhere dealing with fallout repercussions.

He wanted to know, one way or the other. He figured the only way to find out meant escaping his cell.

Wash picked up the tray and started banging on the door with it again. "Hey!" he shouted. "Hey, you want your answers?" he added. "I got answers. I got all sorts of answers about Miranda and Blue Sun and River Tam!"

He had no intention of delving those secrets, but he had to do something. If anyone was listening, though, they didn't reply.

That night, after nearly two days without food, he drank water until he felt full. He spent the next few hours waking up off and on to relieve himself. He slept on the floor with his coat pulled around him like a blanket, and when he awoke, he threw up clear liquid into the toilet bowl.

He fell asleep again leaning against the wall beside the toilet. It wasn't until the whirring noise of food delivery sounded that he awoke fully. He stared at the arm as it set the tray on the floor and retreated back to the ceiling hatch. He looked at the gruel and protein. He wondered for a bit if he was dreaming, but it didn't make sense that his dream food was protein gruel.

He eventually gathered enough strength to push off the floor and crawl toward the food. It was real. It was bland and tasteless, but he licked the bowl clean. Satiated, he sprawled out on the floor in a way he never had before when he'd been a reanimated corpse in the other facility.

He lay there, staring up at the ceiling, squinting into the steel, trying to see the stars somewhere beyond millions of pounds of steel and concrete. His body recovered slowly as it broke down the food, and he sighed as the hunger pangs ebbed. He remained on his back for hours until the lights blinked off.
--

His brow furrowed at the sudden darkness. He had been here for several days now and the lights had never once even flickered or dimmed. For them to wink out completely wasn't an entirely comforting notion. Wash sat up and looked around, trying to make out any features in his cell. There were no windows, and no light came in beneath the steel door to the outside world.

He knew the bed was to his left, barely an arm's reach away, and that to his right was the toilet and sink, but he could make out neither. The darkness was so absolute that he couldn't see his own hand in front of his face.

Swallowing down the panic that suddenly tried to claw its way out of his throat, he got to his feet. He felt around until he found the bed and sat on it. He kept his arms and legs close to him and tried to push away the thoughts of what was possibly happening to him. He didn't want to speculate.

He wished he had a flashlight or something; it suddenly occurred to him that gas might be silently pumping into the room. Not that he could do anything if it was.

He rubbed his neck self-consciously and looked around helplessly. His eyes were straining, trying to see through the dark. His ears were alert, too, listening for any sound out of place. His fingers wrapped around the tie hanging from his neck.

He pulled it off, flipped it over, and switched it on. It powered up and displayed its steady "Searching for Signal" screen. It was a dull, dim light but enough to see by. He held the tie up and moved about the cell. He determined there was nothing entering his room, and that at least assuaged his irrational fears. Being able to see, no matter how feebly, settled him greatly.

Stepping to the steel door, he put his ear to it and listened. He couldn't make out anything on the other side. Whenever he thought he heard something, he quickly realized it was just the sound of blood rushing through his ears.

Then, after about ten minutes, he definitely heard something and felt a tremor. If there hadn't been a sound associated with it, he would have assumed there had been an earthquake. This was Londinium, where such things were controlled, and it had sounded like a detonation.

The lights were still out, but the noises increased. They were low and booming and echoed through the metal in a way that his tray banging hadn't. Realizing suddenly what they were, he backed up from the door and pressed himself against the far wall.

In the darkness he couldn't see the door. His tie illuminated only a few feet in front of him, so he didn't see it the door explode in front of him. He tightly closed his eyes as he heard the blast. Debris rained down as a fresh gale of cold air rushed around him. He coughed at the dust but opened his eyes to light.

He was met by Mal's serious grin, illuminated by the flashlight shining into the cell. Jayne stood beside Mal, peering in. In his hand he had a huge gun that was leveled at the ground. Behind them, he saw Zoe, her face in profile as she stared down the hall. Her rifle was leveled at her hips, clearly playing guard to them.

"You all right?" Mal asked as he stepped through the blasted hole into the cell. He went to Wash and grabbed his arm securely. His eyes were deep with concern.

Wash laughed. The relief that flooded off him was almost tangible. He was safe, and they were safe. "Ni bai chi!" he cried and launched off the wall to hug Mal tightly. "I can't believe you're here! What were you thinking?"

Mal laughed, returned the hug briefly, and quickly ushered him out of the cell. "Thought we was rescuing you."

"Yeah. Why'd y'have t'go'n'do somethin' so stupid as gettin' caught by the 'Lliance?" Jayne grunted. He smiled faintly at Wash, and it was easy to see he was rather invigorated by the attack plan.

"It wasn't on my agenda," Wash admitted and looked around the darkened corridors. Only Mal's flashlight and Jayne's gun sights illuminated the hall. "We must be fifty floors down. How did you get here?"

Mal grinned. "Seventy-two," he corrected with a nod. "You can thank Kaylee for the schematics when we get back; this was all her plotting."

Beyond them, they heard angry voices and footfalls. "We got company incoming, sir," Zoe noted, glancing over her shoulder at them for the first time. Her eyes found Wash. She looked him over quickly and smiled fleetingly.

"Figured we might," Mal agreed resignedly, looking back down the hall. "Well, no time to waste. Wash?" He looked back to him. "You up to a bit of running?"

Wash laughed, despite the inappropriateness of the sound at the moment. It was hard to believe this was actually happening. The Blue Sun didn't have Mal. They didn't even seem to have River or any of the crew. Somehow, against all odds, Mal had infiltrated to the basement levels of the Blue Sun Corporation and broken him out of jail.

"I'm up for it. You know another way out of this place?" he asked.

Jayne took off leading, raising his gun to bear. An observation robot was blown out in front of them, and Wash paid it little mind as they ran past.

"Got a plan," Mal noted and patted a small satchel he had on his hip, tucked under his brown coat. "May be better than a way."

Jayne grunted and looked over his shoulder at Mal. "Yeah, 'cept the damn hundan is gonna drown hisself."

"Less talkin', more running," Zoe noted tersely. She brought up the rear, running almost entirely backwards as she covered them from behind.

Mal pulled out a small pad, consulted it, and pointed down a hall. "This way." The four of them turned and took off down another nearly identical hallway. In the dimly lit corridors, they almost ran past the elevator shaft.

"Here, sir," Zoe called. Her words drew them up.

Mal looked back at her and then consulted his pad. Realizing she was right, he hit the door. Wash didn't expect the shaft to respond with the facility's power down, but it didn't take long for the elevator doors to open with a soft ping.

"We're just gonna ride out of here?" Wash asked incredulously as the four of them piled quickly into the elevator. Jayne leaned out, twisted the top on one of his smoke bombs, and hurled it down the hallway.

Mal was busy inserting the data pad into a thin slot at the bottom of the thumb scan by the time Jayne rejoined thme. "'Ride' ain't exactly th'word I'd use."

Zoe and Jayne exchanged glances but neither said anything.

The scanner let out a soft beep, and the doors finally closed in front of them. Mal pressed a button on the pad, and the elevator shifted. Looking up, Wash noticed the numbers starting to change. "We're going down?"

Mal didn't say anything at first; he just reached his hand out and squeezed Wash's. "We had t'get a little creative." His impish grin was all Wash had to see to know the difficult part was yet to come.