Some days never seemed to end. Clocks stop and nothing seems to get done. Of all the times for that to happen… He sighed in frustration and leaned against the railing as he looked over the mostly empty cargo bay. He'd slipped. Had a 'Jayne moment'. Suspicious kid waves a stack of credits at him, assures him it ain't Alliance after him and happens to be going exactly the right direction. Away. Far away. Seemed easy enough. He didn't look threatening - weak and tired, sure. Now there was concern he wasn't right in the head or carried some kind of disease the doc didn't know about.

Gorram kid even claimed to be contagious though he seemed to think it only applied when asleep. The doc was confused and looked awful unhappy about that, the Shepherd was worried, Wash and Kaylee claimed the boat was going fast as it could and it just wasn't fast enough. Zoe thought it was foolish to take on a passenger in a state like that and figured he'd been asking for trouble from the start. River was floating around like a ghost as usual and Inara was avoiding him… as usual. No doubt Jayne wanted to just kill the kid and drop him on an asteroid. However appealing that might be there were some lines he had no intention of crossing and that was one of them.

He still wasn't pleased with Jayne's quick shuffling off of duties onto the preacher however much sense that made. Wasn't his job to delegate a task that had already been delegated. Book might be able to keep the passenger calm but most likely wouldn't and if the kid turned violent there wasn't much the 'holy man' could do. He'd have set Zoe on the task but she'd have better luck coaxing Wash to use any trick he knew in getting them to Deadwood faster. If only the kid had let them choose a closer planet…

A couple more hours to make sure Jayne had learned his lesson and he'd take over watching the kid try to wear a hole in the floor around the table. No amount of talking had convinced the kid to stay in his bunk. He insisted on being somewhere more open where the activity of people around him would help keep him awake. He mostly just annoyed and unnerved everyone, though.

An agonized, horrified shriek unlike anything he'd heard even in the war shattered the peace and had him sprinting for the kitchen. When he skidded to a stop it took a moment to comprehend just what he was looking at. Jayne was standing with a gun clutched in one hand and a dumbfounded look on his face as he stared at what was left of the passenger. The boy looked like he had exploded - blood was everywhere and he was pretty sure there was an arm on top of the cabinets.

"I know what you're thinkin' Mal…" Jayne said after a moment, unusually shaken. "I swear I didn't do… whatever just happened. Ain't my fault."

"What did just happen?" He asked as he tried to locate all the parts without getting too close to the central puddle. From what he could see it would have taken a much larger gun than Jayne was holding to do this kind of damage.

"Wo de ma…. Mal, he just... " Jayne shook his head and looked up at the Captain. There was none of the usual confident arrogance visible in his stance and that alone made Mal a little nervous. He'd never seen anything get to this guy. "Any other time I'd be impressed but I don't know how… He slowed down his pacing a little, stumbled, looked up like someone said something then just… fell to pieces and the pieces went flyin' everywhere."

"Need to get this cleaned up." He said, trying to ignore the four extra sets of eyes observing from doorways.

"No ruttin' way. I ain't touching that." Jayne said, falling back into his more familiar demeanor as he became aware of the others. Mal chose not to point out that there was already plenty of blood splattered across the big guy's clothing.

"Doc, help me out here. Gonna need your thoughts on this." He said, motioning for Simon to come in. Kaylee took off at a run, pale and looking like she was about to lose her dinner. Had he the ability he'd have kept her from seeing this. He gestured for Zoe to help, too, knowing she would. Book remained in one of the doorways silently praying over some of the remains that made it that far.

It took far too long with everyone working in virtual silence but eventually bags of body parts had been delivered to the infirmary for Simon to look at. He was hoping the doctor would be able to reassure him the kid had swallowed a small bomb or something. He could feel the tension of the crew - Zoe was silent as she helped him clean the last of the blood but he knew she was on edge. Kaylee was no doubt terrified and even Jayne was at least a bit scared. Unlikely he'd openly admit as much. He had no doubt Wash was going to be demanding answers and at the very least a change of course and all he could do was stall that conversation until he had something approaching answers. It was hard to make decisions when you didn't have all the facts.

Two hours later they couldn't find blood anymore. Mal was more sure by the minute that there were at least minor explosives involved - it was the only way that mess could have been remotely possible. Zoe left to try and keep Wash calm. He had come down once during the cleaning and quickly left again after catching sight of what looked like, and might have been, a murder scene. There had been no sign of River and for that he was glad.

On the way to see what the Doc had to say he noticed the door to Inara's shuttle was open and almost stopped in to check on her but as he got nearer he heard her singing softly over Kaylee crying. With a sigh he continued and stood in the infirmary door. Simon was circling the table, poking, prodding and generally looking confused. He had the parts cleaned up and laid out in the proper order. Without the blood everywhere it looked almost more like a dissection. If it was considered normal for the torso to be cut in half down the middle as well.

"Tell me he swallowed a grenade." Mal said, not able to smile inwardly as he usually did after sneaking up on him like this.

"You want me to lie to you?" Simon asked, glancing up at him after composing himself.

"Unless you got a better explanation."

"He swallowed a grenade." He recited dryly and looked back to the body.

Mal sighed heavily. "I'm not going to like the real explanation, am I?"

"Probably not but I've been surprised before." He said, stepping back to lean against the counter. "All clean cuts. They seem to be consistent with the blades used on his back. What really confuses me, though… the bones are cut through just as cleanly. Something like this had to have taken hours but the way Jayne described it… seconds? It's just not possible."

"Can't be thinkin' the kid was telling the truth about the dream Reaver." He scowled, not liking where this was pointing.

"I'd be more likely to believe he brought some kind of hallucinogen on board and this is all in our heads, a combination of drugs and mass hysteria… but if that's the case it's no drug I'm capable of testing for. I tried that already. I really don't know what to think at this point. Insanity or impossibility." He shook his head. "Normally I'd suggest we get to a good hospital where they could check us for everything possible on the off chance it's something new I haven't heard about but since that isn't really an option all we can do is observe the crew and make note of anyone showing symptoms. I'll see if there's anything I missed, anything that might offer a clue as to what really happened, though."

"You do that." Mal nodded and made his way back to the stairs, pausing halfway up to consider what he was going to say. Everyone would want answers he didn't have and to know what plans he had that weren't made yet. He hadn't gotten the feeling the kid had been going to Deadwood for a cure or answers, he'd been going because it was isolated. He'd been going to die. It hadn't been Mal's business what the kid wanted as long as he had the cash to cover his ride but now it left him with further uncertainty. There had to be something to stop whatever was going on.

Could be it wasn't as contagious as he thought. Could be the trouble was over the minute they jettisoned his remains, something he'd be doing soon as the Doc was done with them. It was too soon to do much of anything, though.

"Tooooooooo laaaaaaaaate!" River's high voice sang out from somewhere in the cargo bay.

Mal tried to ignore the icy chill that shot up his spine and continued walking. River was a nice girl but she was damned eerie sometimes.