A/N: This is late, I know. Blame… life and health and Serenity and Joss Whedon.

Wait, you can't blame Joss, he's… he's… brilliant.

So just blame my health. Or lack thereof. It comes and goes.

And the State Fair.

I went shopping for a friend's birthday gift and had to pick up Serenity when I was there. I proceeded to watch it, watch the Deleted Scenes, the Deleted Scenes but with Joss's commentary, bloopers, all the other bonus features, then the whole movie again with Joss's commentary.

All in one night and I loved every minute of it.

Man am I a Browncoat.

And proud of it.

Part 16- Time Flies

Milking amnesia bunnies was not an unheard of thing since researchers back at Head Quarters had been working on an anti-venom, but hadn't come up with anything, and won't for at least another four years because they haven't yet according to the current APBA Handbook.

The amnesia lab at HQ was a fairly popular site for field trips, so Lennon had seen this kind of thing before.

Not that she ever actually milked a bunny though.

There was a first time for everything.

Pausing before she put the short fangs, really slightly overgrown canines, over the cup, she wondered if the bunny's venom had changed as she emotionally prodded it to since the bunny was stunned.

If it didn't and she injected Rodney with it, she might even face termination.

Nah. They wouldn't do that to her. She was too valuable.

With her hand on the top of the bunny's head, and one finger over each of two small glands above the fangs, she hooked the top of the mouth over the lip, fangs piercing the latex with a pop.

And nothing happened.

The cup was dry.

"You have got to be kidding me…"

She thought back to the amnesia lab and tried to remember what the techs did to get the venom to flow.

The semantics were the same and everything.

Unless…

She applied pressure to the glands and the venom flowed down the side of the cup.

"Finally."

And it wasn't opaque black like full-strength venom, instead it was more of a transparent grey.

"This better work."

---Perspective switch ---

The scent coming from the open vial was the most disgusting thing Charlotte had ever smelled. And that included the Bog of Eternal Stench.

She really didn't remember it being that bad. Of course, she hadn't been the one to drink it.

Lily's face had been interesting once they forced it down her throat, but Charlotte had accounted that to the insanity brought on by hallucinations of fluffy clouds, smiling suns, and Barney.

"Here goes nothing…"

Holding her breath, she downed it in one gulp.

"Ack!" She winced and scrunched her face as if she just did a shot of the strongest tequila money could buy, and Charlotte never winced because of any alcohol. Ever.

The taste was a cross between an Easter egg left in the potted plant through June, the fuzzy blue mold on pepper jack cheese that's been sitting in the fridge for months, and a whole pineapple left in the back of the fridge so long it fermented inside (with the alcohol kick).

She had to brace herself on the crate that her pack was resting on to get her bearings.

Her mouth was polluted with the taste of the orange antidote and she really needed water.

Desperately.

And gum. Spearmint flavored gum.

"That crap better work."

"So where are you hiding?"

Lennon's voice over the radio took her by a bit of surprise, but she let it go quickly. "Level 15."

"I know that. Where exactly?"

"You should've asked that from the beginning," Charlotte teased. "From the elevator, take a left, a right, and two lefts."

"Got it."

"Hey Len, you got any gum?"

"I have donuts."

Charlotte laughed at the unexpected answer.

"Oh and bagels. Forgot to grab some cream cheese though."

"Some of those better be for me."

"That was the plan. Can't have the CO dying of hunger on me. Do you know how that would look on my record?"

"No worse than that mark for letting that canon get mauled by a horror bunny a few years back."

"That was not my fault! … How do you know about that?"

"I'm your CO. I memorized your file."

"That's disturbing."

"Not nearly as much as some things." She refused to look at the hallucinations and wondered how long the antidote was going to take to kick in.

"It's really dusty back here isn't it?"

Charlotte turned off her radio as she saw Lennon walking towards her. "It's a running theme."

"I'm starting to think they believe dust is a protective covering." Lennon moved down the hall rather nonchalantly for just having milked a plot bunny. The beaker was safe in one of the side pockets of her pack.

"More than a few people think that."

---Hop on down the bunny trail across base ---

"I really should get going…"

"You're saying that because you don't want to talk a walk with me." Jonas half teased as they stood outside the mess hall.

Madison kept a slight smile on her lips, "That's not it. I have things to do before I leave the base."

"I know how to pick my battles." Jonas held out his hand, "It was lovely to spend time with you, Madge."

"You too." She gently took his hand.

After a short shake, he leaned in, kissed her cheek, and whispered, "Good luck in that new job of yours."

Madison blushed and couldn't say anything as he walked away.

He disappeared around the corner, and she sighed.

But, Buster life was nomadic. Busy. And anything long term with canons was totally prohibited and had tons of regulations on it.

Brushing it off and returning to her happy self, she bounced along the corridor back on the job.

---Few hours later because the writer is tired of filling in time ---

"That's it, everything, you're completely satisfied with the sweep?" Lennon's mouth dropped open.

"Yeah. There's still a few loose ends, but we can head out in a couple hours. Two tops."

"But it's you. You always make us do another check if we're somewhere this size where it's possible. In your eyes anyway."

"You got a problem with leaving?" Charlotte asked, having almost forgotten there had been something off about the geek since the ship arrow.

Lennon snorted to cover her reluctance, "We've been here way to long already." Except she needed time to track down an astrophysicist… great.

"Contact Madge. Tell her to check if any ship bunnies came home to roost at their den on her way up to amnesia den to meet us."

"Why do I have to tell her?"

"Because I'm the boss and I told you to."

Scowling, Lennon keyed her radio, "The boss wants you to clear the ship den again."

"Okay."

"Then head up to the amnesia den."

"Okie dokie."

The radio clicked off and Lennon commented, "She's always so cheery."

"That's our Madge."

The elevator they had been waiting for finally showed up, the long wait partly because they were at Level 13, a floor barely used and the other floors were busy and hogging the elevators.

They stepped in and Charlotte hit '24.'

Silence fell over them. They didn't want to believe it was tense, but it kinda was.

They were both hiding ships after all.

Charlotte pulled out a cigar.

Lennon tapped her foot.

Charlotte chewed on the end of said cigar.

Lennon crossed her arms.

Charlotte placed her hands on her hips in a rather imposing manner.

Lennon shot a look over to her.

Charlotte met her eyes.

Lennon snapped her head forward breaking eye contact.

Then the doors slid open at Level 22 and two men walked in.

Charlotte's expression stayed perfectly stoic while Lennon fought to keep anger from flooding hers.

"Sergeant."

"Lennon."

"Major."

"Rodney."

The men stayed in the front of the elevator as the women practically flattened themselves against the back wall. Or whatever you call the back of an elevator.

Rodney hit '28' and didn't move from the panel and Lorne had to virtually push him out of the way to press '27.'

Awkward silence again descended, but this time over the four of them.

Lennon stared at the back of Rodney's head, forcing a glare off her face because her CO was standing next to her.

Charlotte stared forward, refusing to look at anything but the floor numbers change. Though the hallucinations did stop earlier, she really didn't need to get distracted by the Major.

Both women swallowed, knowing they'd have to make it passed the men, as the door slid open.

Luckily, Lorne stepped to the side, opening up a hole for them to exit through.

Neither woman said anything about the subject of obviously knowing one of the men since they didn't want any questions directed at them.

So they carried on.

The walk to the den was rather quiet and it should suffice to say rather boring.

If you want detail about it, too bad.

The last time she left the amnesia den, Lennon had been careful to turn the lights back off to make it appear no one had been there since they all left it what seemed like ages ago.

Charlotte flipped the lights on, it revealing exactly two bunnies that were quickly taken care of.

"Alright, Lenny. Go fiddle with the SEP field generator."

"Finally! I've been wanting to get a good look at it for ages." She stomped over to it, trying to formulate a plan to ditch Charlotte and find Rodney.

If only he had been on the elevator when she was going up to meet Charlotte a few hours ago, but no. Her life could never work out the easy way. It always had to be the hard way.

At least there was new tech to play with.

Lennon plopped on the ground in front of the generator, looking for a way to open the thing.

Charlotte stayed by the door, expecting Madison any minute. Then they'd maybe take a quick walkthrough…

Nah. It'd be fine. Once they got rid of the SEP generator, the base personnel would see any remaining bunnies and get rid of them themselves.

Except if they were the ship ones… they were pink after all and pink is not a normal color for the common Earth rabbit.

She pulled a lighter from her pocket and lit her cigar, the first one she'd smoked during the whole mission.

It was good.

There was knocking at the door, preceding it opening and Madison bopping in. "Hey girls."

Lennon waved behind her back, having gotten the generator open and being completely absorbed in figuring out how it worked. Even if it was from a universe where the laws of physics were broken.

"Any bunnies go back to the den?"

"Just one. It seemed awfully sad too. It was almost mercy killing it since it looked so lonely."

Charlotte retorted, "It was a plot bunny."

"I know that, I was just saying."

Charlotte blew a ring of smoke up into the air.

Little holes were torn in it by drops of water.

More drops fell from above.

"What the…" Charlotte looked up through the now rain-like water to the high ceiling.

Lennon stood up and yelled, "You set off the sprinklers!"

A/N: I stayed up just to write all of that and upload it, so I hope you all enjoyed it.

More Lennon/McKay in the next chapter.

It might just be the last one too… we'll see.