I thank you all for your reviews! The first chapter I suppose should have been more like an ultimatum or a prologue or something, because it was pretty short, but there you go. By the way, this is set a while after the movie Serenity, so if you haven't seen that, Wash and Shepherd Book are dead. It's kind of sad, but you learn more about River. You reviewers should watch it. Summer Glau (River) is totally awesome.

Special thanks to Isefyr for being the only person logged in while reviewing my story.

Enjoy! :) StarDrop5

While Mal, Zoe, and Simon were examining a village of dead bodies, and Jayne was cursing a cow, Inara and River were chatting.

River talked about her life with Simon, her life at home with the Tams. Inara talked about her relationship with Mal. They were helping each other learn new things about Simon and Mal, and Kaylee and Zoe, and Wash and Book, and each other. (They avoided the topic of Jayne.)

It was in the middle of Inara's discussion of how she could tell Simon and Kaylee liked each other that River grasped her head and curled into a ball. Inara was immediately concerned.

"River? Are you… okay?" She said softly, crouching next to her (she'd chosen to sit on the floor). River shook her head, tightly closing her eyes, and muttered, "They're all dead. Nothing… nothing… Simon needs to leave."

Inara was pretty confused by this broken statement, and more than a little confused by how River was acting, but she didn't show it. "River, sweetie, what's going on? Why does Simon need to leave?"

River curled herself tighter, taking her hands from her head and wrapping them around her legs, which were tucked under her chin. She looked earnestly at Inara. "Simon needs to come back. He needs to. Bring him back! Please."

Inara took this to mean that River thought Simon was in danger or something, and said, "Don't worry. They're coming back."

"No," River said firmly, as though she knew where Simon was. "No, they're not."

Inara nodded thoughtfully. "They will. They'll come back."

Not if they don't come now, thought River, feeling Simon. He was worried, but not scared. He had no idea of the danger she felt all around him.

She got up, went to her bunk, put on her combat boots and a pair of slacks that had been Kaylee's, and went out. Right out, outside, onto the desert sand, where she sprinted as fast as she could toward Simon, Inara shouting behind her.

She'd find him in time.

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Mal examined the bodies they'd laid out. There were already 24 of them, which Mal thought was already too much. He and Zoe were laying them out, a grisly but possibly necessary job. Simon was inspecting them. So far, he had informed them that the people hadn't been shot, stabbed, burnt, had their skulls cracked, been poisoned, frozen, fallen from a great height, broken in two, boiled, burnt with acid, drowned, had simultaneous heart attacks, or any other grisly death you can think of. Basically, Simon had said, every single person in the village had died of old age at the same time, even a few babies they'd found.

Mal was in the process of pulling another one out of a shop when he heard footsteps. He turned, expecting to see Zoe with a report of some kind or something, and came face to face with River.

She brushed past him and sprinted down the line of bodies, to the end where Simon was crouching over one. Mal cursed under his breath and set off after her.

When he reached the end of the line, River was pulling on Simon, and he was trying to calm her down. She blathered nonsense about danger, something bad about to happen, and so on. Mal rolled his eyes as Simon said calmly, "What danger, mei-mei?"

Breathless, windblown and sunburnt, it took River a second to answer. Finally, she whispered, "Fire."

Zoe appeared around a corner, sprinting to Mal and Simon. She acknowledged River with her eyes, but was apparently in too much of a hurry to say anything. "Sir, there's a fire. A little one, in a hut... full of explosives. We might want to hurry away."

Maybe the girl isn't completely mad, Mal thought, as he followed Zoe back to the top of the ridge and up to Jayne. No sooner had Simon crested the hill than they looked back and saw the village trapped under rolling flame. Jayne swore loudly, Simon gasped, River looked happy- she probably was nuts- and Zoe turned to him and said, "Sir, might I suggest you radio Kaylee sooner than later?"

Right. The radio. He plucked it from his belt and said, "Kaylee? Ya there?"

There was a moment of silence, and then, cheerfully, "Done already, Cap? I was willing to bet the 'verse that you'd end up drinking and get another free wife."

Mal rolled his eyes, and said, "The mule, to the top of the ridge, as fast as you can."

"Shiny." He heard the radio on the other end click off, and he put his back in his belt.

"She's on her way," He told the worried crew around him. Well, Jayne didn't look too worried. Just grumpy.

Kaylee pulled up next to them 15 minutes later, and they all piled in. However, they'd only been on the way for two minutes before Simon smacked himself in the forehead.

"Whatever you just thought of, I like it." Jayne said.

"I should have brought one of the bodies back for professional examination!" Simon groaned, realizing far too late for any good.

"Bodies?" Kaylee asked perkily. "You guys kill someone?"

"No." Said Mal.

Kaylee smiled. "That's shiny."

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When they arrived at the ship, Inara got up and apologized to Simon. "I'm sorry! I was just talking with her and she ran out to get you. I don't really know what happened. She kept saying you were in danger."

Simon said, "She was right." He looked around. "Speaking of River, did you see where she went? I don't want her to run away or something. I think all those dead people we found scared her."

Inara shrugged. "No, I didn't see her… maybe she went to see Kaylee? I know they like to hang out."

Simon liked the idea of going to see Kaylee, River or not, so he set off toward her bunk, and knocked on her door. It slid back and revealed the ladder. "Come in?" He heard Kaylee's voice from below. He wasn't about to ignore an invitation like that. He started down the ladder, saying as he did so, "Hey, Kaylee. Is River in here? Only I can't…" He turned around and Kaylee was right there, smiling at him, like only Kaylee could. She was so cute. Needless to say, River was forgotten for the time being, while Simon and Kaylee… erm… well, they were otherwise engaged.

Inara, feeling very guilty over the whole mess with River, because she thought it was her fault, thought it was her duty to look for her. Of course, Inara knew that if River didn't want to be found on this ship, she'd slip through a vent and vanish, and no one could find her if River didn't want it. She looked anyways, wondering if River would come out for her, because they were friends.

Two hours into her search, however, she had to agree that River was not going to come out that easily.

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Jayne wandered into the medical area, cursing the cut on his finger, which he'd given himself accidentally while playing with a fancy knife he'd found. He opened a drawer, where he'd expected to find the bandages. It was empty. Go figure. That doc was gorram brain damaged, and he could prove it. He turned and opened the next drawer, and found that this, too was empty, except for a lone, empty syringe. Jayne, getting angry, took it out, looked at it, and flung it against the wall. It shattered in an explosion of sound.

He looked in all the drawers and cupboards and everywhere he could think of, but nowhere could he find just one measly bandage. Raging, Jayne stormed down the little hall and up the few stairs, around and straight to the guest quarters, where Simon, not knowing that Jayne was barreling angrily towards him, was dreamily thinking of Kaylee.

Jayne tossed open the door to Simon's room, glared at him, and said in a voice that was so angry it was practically hysterical, "What the gorram heck did you do with the bandages!" It wasn't even a question.

Simon, completely bewildered, backed up and slammed into the wall. "Bandages? Aren't they in the medical area?"

"NO!" howled Jayne, madness glinting in his eyes. "No gorram bandages, no medicine, no nothing! It's ALL GONE!"

Shock in his eyes, Simon stepped forth, figuring out in seconds what must have happened. He wasn't a genius doctor for nothing. "Oh, no…" He mouthed silently, pushing past Jayne, who was gasping for breath, and walked to the medical area, slowly and gingerly.

In a second, he observed the mess Jayne had made, flinging drawers everywhere and leaving the cupboard doors open, and he saw how everything was empty. He crouched, carefully, next to the shattered fragments of the empty syringe and examined them, and finally, he looked up and saw the vent on the ceiling, with the metal grille that usually covered it gone.

He turned around and bumped into Jayne and Zoe, who'd heard the commotion and come to investigate. He looked, Zoe thought, like he'd just been hit by a mallet. He gaped, his mouth open, apparently at a complete loss for words.

Finally, he collected himself, looked once more at the shattered glass of the syringe, and said softly, "She's taken everything."

The air seemed to grow thick with the tension of the moment, as Zoe and Simon looked at each other and a hidden conversation seemed to pass between the two. Jayne sort of broke the solemnity of the moment by asking, "What, you mean the jelly-brain?