Reviews will be appreciated. Yet to receive one, but would be delighted if I did.

Update: Came back through and did some structural updates.

Chapter Three

Simon was climbing the walls with worry. It was now about halfway through the day-cycle, meaning they were rapidly approaching twenty-four hours since anyone had seen or heard from River.

"Mei-mei" he found himself yelling into random corners of Serenity. "Mei-mei, please come out." He waited for a giggle, quiet footsteps, anything. Earlier he had walked in on Shepard saying a brief prayer and nearly lost his mind.

"So you think something bad happened to her," he said desperately, his eyes wild.

Shepard looked at him with a small, sympathetic smile. "The prayer isn't for her, son. It's for you."

"For me?"

"So that you don't go out of your mind with worry. God knows that child will come down when she sees fit."

Kaylee had paced along side him for a nearly an hour before having to tend to the engine room. "It's okay to hide, sweetie, just let one of us know you're okay, yeah?" she called into the air hatch.

They hadn't spent much time together as of late, and despite the unfortunate circumstances, Kaylee found herself glad that they were walking together once more.

"Look, Simon…about last week…it weren't fair for me to be givin' you a hard time. I know you have River to think of, and askin' you to walk away from that short-notice wasn't right."

"Kaylee…" he sighed. She expected him to tell her that it weren't the time for talking, that he had to find River, and resigned herself to his mild (but somehow still destructive) rebuke. "And I'm sorry for being so stubborn. You're right, if it's a safe border planet than there's no harm going topside for a simple walk. I do have River, but I can always ask Shepard or Inara to watch her for an hour. She's not a constant task, and she's getting better."

Kaylee had smiled at that, a thousand times cheered.

Then the conversation had taken a somber turn.

"I wish you could have known her before what they did," Simon said seriously. "You would have loved her."

Kaylee smiled gently. "Simon, I love her now. We all do. 'cept maybe not Jayne. But he's workin' on it, don't tell 'im I said that though or he'll undo all the work."

Simon smiled back, tiredly, and fished something small out of one of his pockets and handed it to Kaylee. It was a hologram photo chip of a young girl, smiling mischievously while sitting cross-legged on the floor with a book. "She's fourteen in that."

Kaylee looked long and hard at the girl she never got a chance to meet. She could see now the weight River had lost from her body and now had resting on her frail shoulders. The photo-River was carefree, excited and in control.

Kaylee handed the photo back. "She was a pretty. Still is."

"Thank you," Simon said, and when Kaylee took his hand, he didn't pull away.

Jayne walked up as Wash was filling a glass of water in the kitchen nook and carrying it out of the room. "What're you doin'?"

Wash turned to look at him, a little confused by the curiosity in a man that had been sticking entirely to his bunk. "Leaving out a glass of water for River. Figure she could get thirsty wherever she is." He reached up and placed it within the airway shaft that River had been known to climb into.

"Think she'll find it?"

"She will. I imagine she's walking every inch of this boat, so she'll see it. Question of when, though." Wash paused thoughtfully, and then walked away.

Jayne remained staring at the glass of water just visible from his height, and whispered to himself. "Gorramit girl, come drink." Then, turning his head over his shoulder, he shouted. "You have some good thinkin' for just a gorram pilot!"

Wash paused on the stairs. "I appreciate it Jayne. And you're not bat-blind yourself if you can notice."

River was turning so many colors.

The sunbeam had come out from behind the cloud now, lit up the blue sky and now there were jellyfish back. They were bobbing and rocking and she was happy until the beestings came eating at her stomach and her skin turned hot and prickly.

The dinosaur was orange and the ape-man was orange-red and splotty, she could see through the metal to the floor and Serenity sang it to her, so much orange so much orange.

Simon would say she had a migraine coming on.

Simon would say come here mei-mei.

Simon would say come get your water and he'd give her food and water and the painkillers and she'd sleep because there were teeth in her skull.

In her skull!

The singing was getting louder but there were teeth in her skull and it was biting her brain.

NOT AGAIN NOT AGAIN NOT AGAIN.

Mal was not having a great day. His entire crew was padding around with their necks craned up and no one had come to dinner.

"River, girl, where you at?" he called into the galley. He crouched down and looked under the furniture, not putting it past the small girl to be crouching there laughing them.

"She isn't there," came a soft voice behind him.

"What," he said without turning to look at her. The fights between them was where the fighting onboard had started, with Wash and Jayne going soon after once all sorts of stability was gone, and he still got a prickly feeling when she was around. "Some special Companion training letting you find missing girls? Get a lot of runaways in your profession?"

"Mal." Her voice was hard and firm. "Let it go. I'm sorry for what I said, and while you'll never apologize, I'm going to assume you're sorry for your own crudeness. But we have bigger things to worry about. I assume you're just as worried about the little one as I am, and we have to find her."

Mal looked at her with seriousness. "I'm looking for her, as you can see."

"We're all looking for her, Mal," she sighed. "Maybe if we tried working together, we'd have a shot at finding her."

"Meeting in ten!" Mal shouted, hearing his voice reverberate around the ship. "Meet in the kitchen! Mandatory, that means you Jayne!"

Inara looked at him approvingly. "Apology accepted, Mal."

"I didn't say nothin'."

But Inara just smiled and floated towards the kitchen.