Disclaimer: Main characters owned by Joss Whedon.

After two months, Mal and River could afford a one-man room in the worst part of the city. After five months, they had enough money for one person to fly a beneath human standards aircraft. After seven months, they had both lost a combined seventy pounds and were slowly climbing the ladder to starvation. Unlike the traveling Nomads who wandered the tundra, The City folk didn't care much about anyone but themselves. It was a cold world, and you had to be tough to survive in it.

Pluto was in the oldest galaxy and therefore technology was almost primeval. Mal had connections- thousands of them- yet he could not contact a single one. The furthest any connection went to was to Earth that Was, and he didn't know anyone who knew anyone from there.

River was sleeping while Mal tried to figure out what they could do. They both slept a lot- took their minds off being hungry all the time. She was on the bed and he was propped up against the wall by the door. In the room was a bed, a small table that acted as a dining table, counter space and a desk, and a small lamp with a bare bulb. And a space heater thanks to River. Mal looked at the tiny heater as it worked its hardest to keep them warm enough. Had she found it in the trash, or stolen it? River wouldn't tell him and eventually he dropped it. Probably didn't want to know either way. But back to the dilemma. There was always the option of stowing away. If Simon could figure out how to break in and out of an Alliance training school, then surely he and River could hide on a clunky old aircraft.

River scratched at the air, muttering in her sleep. "He needs to run," she said, tossing her hair around. "He needs his family. He isn't safe."

"Who isn't safe?" Mal asked, more to amuse himself. She rarely gave him an answer if she was sleeping, and even when she was awake it was still 50/50.

"My brother."

Mal stared at her, obviously having not expected that answer. River mumbled a bit then was quiet again. He wanted to prod a bit more, but decided against it. She was tired and needed her rest. He was tired, too. It had to be one in the morning, or close to it. But his mind wouldn't shut off. Think, he scolded himself. What is the fastest way to out of a place? Well, the very fastest way would be to not be welcomed anymore. Did he want to be a fugitive again? No, not really. Without his own ship there was no way he could promise this girl any kind of safety. But there had to be a way to get these people to want him off their planet without wanting to kill him. If there was just someone he could reach- anyone at all.

"Witch," River said, her eyes opening. She looked at Mal, her face dead blank. "They called her a witch and wanted her burned."

"Yes," Mal agreed, not liking the way she was staring at him. "But we flew in and saved you, remember? We don't have that luxury this time."

"Fire scares them. Beneath the snow are the gasses that were. The gasses that burn lungs and kill them all. Fire destroys the snow."

"Okay," Mal agreed again, although to what he wasn't sure. "Fire." He thought it over, but came up short. "I don't get it," he said, which was putting it mildly.

"Scare them with fire." River blinked and seemed to come out of her trance. "Sleep now?" she asked him innocently.

"I guess." He got up (stiffly, from sitting on the floor so long) and crawled into the bed beside her. An amusing thought crossed his mind. Never in my life have I had a woman in bed beside me for this long. He smiled. He supposed now he could understand why Simon had waited so long on Kaylee. There was no room in life for another woman, not with this one always by your side. Still, he wasn't mad, just as Simon hadn't been.

"Twins," River mumbled as Mal took his usual place beside her. She nuzzled her nose into his neck. "Twins that never were." He said nothing, but kissed her forehead and closed his eyes. There was something to this fire things that he knew he had to understand, because River understood and although she couldn't tell him what she meant, she made it clear fire was important. But how? Mal eventually drifted off to sleep, frustrated that he'd never think of a way to get them out of here.

Oh, but morning can bring such wonderful ideas.

The sun came up and brightened the sky, if only by a little bit. They ate a quick meal of oatmeal looking substance and hurried off to the junkyard for another fantastic day of scrapping metal. Oh, boy!

"River," Mal said in a low voice, "I want you to stand by the melting vat a lot today, okay?"

"Scare them with fire?" she asked.

"Yes indeed. Now go." She went, looking at the molten metal with a face filled with wonder. Oh, the possibilities, her face clearly said. The wonder of it. Six times that day Eddie had to yell at the girl to stop futzing around and get back to work. On the seventh time, Eddie went over her head.

"Reynolds!" he yelled.

Mal limped over, desperately wanting to strangle Eddie with his own shoelaces. "Yes?" he asked. He still couldn't bring himself up to calling the man 'sir'.

"You see your girl over there?"

Mal looked. "Uh huh."

"I seen her there all damn day. What the hell's she doing? She don't get back to work, she won't have work to get back to! Am I making myself clear?"

"Yes," Mal said, although his face had paled a little. "All day?" he asked. "She's been there all day?"

"Yeah," Eddie said skeptically. "Why? What's she doing?"

"Well, just, staring I guess," Mal said uneasily. He watched River intensely, who continued looking at the boiling liquid metal with her eyes wide and dreamy.

Eddie did not trust Mal enough to take his word on things. "Reynolds, you better tell me what's going on with that girl or I'm gonna fire you both, understand?"

"Okay, okay," Mal caved. "Okay. Well River, she ain't really… stable, you know what I mean?" He tapped his head and made a funny, finger-wiggling gesture. Eddie got the gist. Mal continued. "For the past couple days she's been asking all these weird questions about what's under the snow."

"More snow," Eddie said simply, already starting to lose interest.

"Yeah," Mal agreed, "that's what I told her. But she wants to find out herself. She wants to get something real hot, like a big old fire, and see how far to the core she can melt. She wants to know what's under all the snow."

"You mean," Eddie said weakly, "to the bottom?"

Mal shrugged. "I guess. Right to the surface. And now you tell me about her looking at that vat all day, makes me worried what she plans to do."

Eddie had paled considerably. Not many people knew this, but underneath the pristine white coating of snow were gasses. Horrible, putrid, lung burning gasses. As a part of the terraforming, the Alliance had buried the planet in several kilometers of snow. As long as that snow never melted (and why should it?), the people were safe. But this here girl wanted to plunge right down to the bottom. So somehow, she knew what was beneath the snow and wanted to kill them all. Eddie gave Reynolds a once-over. He probably didn't know what the girl knew. He was just concerned about losing his job. Well, Eddie thought, you're about to lose a lot more than that.

"Just keep her away from the vat," Eddie said hastily. "I gotta go meet with someone. Get back to work." He hurried off before Mal could slip in a word edgewise.

River eventually rejoined Mal at the scrap heap. "Eyes burn," she told him.

"You did fine," he muttered. "Now stick by me, okay?"

"Eyes burn," she said again, lifting the piece of iron Mal had been struggling with.

He scowled at her. "Showoff."

"Reynolds!" Eddie called, bumbling his way over and trying to look important. "Get her and come with me."

"There a problem?" Mal asked. River was about to speak, but he jabbed her in the ribs. She punched him back, purely on reflex.

Eddie ignored their feud. "Management wants to see you," he said, smiling like the worm he was. His teeth were pointed and nasty. "Right now."

Mal and River followed Eddie without question. Mal kept a hand on the girl at all times in case she felt the need to go explore or some such thing. She had tried to drift off a few times, but the major part of her brain understood she had to follow along right now. It was tough convincing the rest of her to do this, so she was glad for Mal's hand.

Management was three very old, very weather-worn men who sat behind a desk and thought they were the princes of the Universe. They looked at Mal and River as though they had been debating on something and had quickly come to an amusing and harsh decision. The man in the middle stood up. "You both are to leave here?" he said.

"Leave?" Mal asked. "Where? Back with the Nomad group?"

"No, no. You are to leave the planet."

Mal looked at River, who bit her lip and shook her head. "Why?" he asked finally. "Have we done something wrong?"

"You are outsiders, Mr. Reynolds. You don't belong here."

"But we… For seven months now-"

"We have discussed it," the burly man to the left interrupted. "And this is our decision."

Mal looked appalled and hurt. Suddenly, he realized something. "This is about her, isn't it? This is about melting the snow. What's under there, anyway?"

"That is irrelevant!" the man in the middle bellowed, his voice booming. "You will gather your things and be gone by sundown."

"Where will we go?" Mal yelled back. "How will we leave?"

"You will have to sell your belongings and find a way, won't you? We want you gone by sundown."

"We don't have belongings," Mal protested. "We don't have anything."

"Gasses," River said in a small voice. "They're afraid of the gasses."

The members of management stared at her, obviously startled out of their wits. "How do you know about them?" the oldest one, the one on the right, said at last.

"Others know," she told him, feeding the paranoia written all over his mind. "There is a leak in your system."

"I knew it," he muttered, casting a sidelong glance at the man beside him. "Someone has been divulging secrets."

"Who would tell a girl?" the man on the left argued.

"It doesn't matter," the one in the middle decided, taking his seat again. "They must go before they can spread this news. Both of them. Get them on the next delivery craft out of here." He looked at Eddie with hard, cold eyes. "Keep them in custody until they are out of the atmosphere, understood?"

"Yes, sir," Eddie said quickly, seizing Mal and River by the arms. "Let's go, you two."

It wasn't until they had broken atmosphere and the familiar dots of stars surrounded them that Mal could finally relax. "About damn time," he said aloud. "I never want to see snow again long as I live."

"They will look for others," River said guiltily. "Some will die."

"Don't think about it," Mal told her, wishing she'd said something about this before they'd been deported. "We got out, that's enough for now." He tossed the empty soup cup into the crate next to him. Their accommodations were terrible- seated unstably in the cargo area surrounded by crates filled with bricks, a small wool blanket for each of them. It wasn't a passenger flight, so it was all they'd be getting. The soup had been good at least. "Where are we headed?" he asked River.

"Quadrant two, sector 117B."

"Good," he said, settling back for some much needed sleep. "Let's find Inara."