12:22 A.M.
February 15th, 2519
transport Serenity
River was by herself. That’s how she liked it at this time of night. She didn’t sleep much, so while the rest of the crew slept, she flew Serenity, the quiet of the ship soothing her busy, busy mind.
Unexpectedly, the quiet was broken by a scratchy signal coming over the radio. “…yday, mayd… shutt… …terprise… have lost helm cont… …ife suppor… …tically wounded crew… …mmediate assistance. Please help us.”
The signal boosted dramatically at the end of the call. River hit the transmit button. “This is transport Serenity. Please state your situation.”
There was silence for a moment, and River was afraid that she had lost the caller. Then, another transmission came through, clear as a bell.
“Serenity, this is shuttle Enterprise. We have lost helm control and life support, and we have two critically wounded crew members. Can you help us?”
River listened to the voice coming over the radio. It was the tightly controlled voice of a woman who was on the verge of totally losing it but was maintaining control. River knew that tone of voice well.
“Enterprise, please stand by,” she replied.
She hit the comm button. “River to Captain Reynolds.”
It was a moment before Mal’s sleepy voice came on the radio. “Yeah…”
“We’re receiving a distress call from a shuttle Enterprise,” River said. “They’ve lost helm control and life support, and they’ve got two critically wounded crew members.”
Silence for a moment. “How far away?” Mal slurred.
“About an hour.”
“Well, get us in gear,” Mal replied.
“Already on the way.”
Down in his quarters, Mal sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Helm control and life support. That meant mechanical and computer. Two critically wounded crew. That meant medical. Wouldn’t hurt to have security.
“Mal to all crew,” he said, hitting the comm button. “Please meet me in the crew mess.”
12:25 A.M.
“Well, so much for that,” Chuck grumbled as Kaylee rolled off of him.
“We’ll finish later, I promise,” she said with a smile, kissing him gently. “Besides, didn’t we just finish like eight minutes ago?”
“I suppose,” Chuck allowed.
The only clothes they had were their date clothes, so Kaylee slid back into the cocktail dress and Chuck put his shirt and slacks back on. Arm in arm, they headed up to the crew mess.
“What’s up?” Kaylee asked as they entered the room.
The whole crew turned to look at them, and then, practically as one, rose to their feet and began to applaud.
Kaylee blushed right to the roots of her hair, but Chuck took a small bow. He got a smack in the back of his head for his troubles.
“Okay, folks, seriously,” Mal said, as Kaylee and Chuck took a seat. “Here’s the situation. There’s a shuttle a little ways from us that has lost helm control and life support. They have two critically wounded crew.”
Mal paused for a moment. “The thing is, we have no clue about these people. They might be trying to drag us in and keelhaul us. I don’t know. So, Jayne and Zoe will be our muscle. Chuck, I’m going to need you to do whatever computer work they need; Kaylee, you’ll do their mechanical work. Simon, you’re gonna be doing surgery, I imagine. River, you’re flying.”
1:15 A.M.
“Mal, this is River,” the voice sounded over the intercom. “The shuttle’s in visual range.”
“Alright,” Mal said. “Chuck, Kaylee, you come with me.”
Kaylee and Chuck followed Mal to the bridge. “Where is it?” Mal asked as he entered the control room.
“There,” River stated, pointing.
Mal peered out the windows. “That white thing in the distance?” he asked.
“That’s it.”
Mal grabbed a pair of binoculars from the wall, and held them up to his face. “Yeah, they’re definitely adrift,” he said, passing the binoculars to Kaylee.
Kaylee took a look. “Interesting design.” She passed the binoculars to Chuck.
Chuck raised the binoculars to his eyes, focused on the white spot –
And for the first time in two months, his brain went crazy. Images flashed in front of his eyes – a designator number. A space shuttle lifting off from Cape Canaveral. A hot fudge sundae? A report from Area 51. The name “Enterprise”.
He lowered the binoculars slowly. His face had gone white. Mal turned and looked at him.
“Chuck?” he said, a note of concern in his voice. “What is it?”
“It’s time for me to go,” Chuck said softly.
He heard a sharp intake of breath next to him. He turned to see Kaylee, her face pale, her eyes starting to fill with tears. Before she could run, though, he grabbed her hand. She looked at him, and he gently slid his other arm around her. He just held her against him for a moment. Then, the radio crackled to life.
“Serenity, this is Enterprise. We have you in visual range.”
Chuck’s head snapped up again. That voice. That voice that he hadn’t heard since December 23rd.
Sarah’s voice.
1:20 A.M.
shuttle Enterprise
“There it is,” Bryce said. “We finally found her, whether by accident or design.”
“Hopefully they can help us,” Sarah said. “Hopefully they can tell us where Chuck is.”
Mullins’ corpse had been stowed in the cargo bay, next to Bryce’s Pontiac. Lorenz had been strapped down in the bunk in what had been Mullins’ cell. His pulse was still weak, but it was still there. Casey was semi-conscious and loaded on morphine. Tweedum had his left arm in a sling and his shoulder tightly wrapped in gauze. He was seated in the pilot’s seat, keeping watch over the shuttle’s functions.
“Enterprise, this is Serenity,” the voice of the woman Sarah had been talking to crackled over the radio. “We’re going to be docking with you in about two minutes. You may experience a lurch and maybe a few bumps as we dock.”
“Copy that,” Tweedum said over the radio. “We don’t mind the bumps.”
Serenity loomed large in Enterprise’s port side windows as she slowly moved in to dock. There were, in fact, a few bumps and then a dull “thud” as the docking collar engaged with the hatch on the side of the cockpit.
After a moment, the voice came back. “Airlock pressure is equalized,” the woman said. “You may open your hatch whenever you’re ready.”
Bryce grabbed the lever on the door and pulled it clockwise. The hatch slowly swung open to reveal a docking tunnel.
Sarah looked down the tunnel into what appeared to be a crew mess. The first people she saw were a tall woman and a guy who looked strangely like Casey. Behind them, she saw two men with brown hair, a red-headed woman…
And Chuck.
Sarah’s eyes went wide and her breath caught as she made eye contact with Chuck. Forgetting about protocol, forgetting about the three injured people onboard, Sarah began to walk quickly down the docking tunnel, then run, barreling through the crew and practically hurling herself at Chuck.
She wrapped her arms around him, attaching herself to him as though she intended to never let go. As he embraced her, a great heaving sob worked its way up her chest and escaped.
“It’s okay,” Chuck whispered. “It’s okay.”
“I… I… I was afraid I was never going to see you again,” she sobbed into his shirt. “I missed you… I missed you so much.”
Meanwhile, Jayne, Zoe, Mal and Simon had made their way onto Enterprise. “Where are the wounded people?” Simon asked without preamble.
“Uh, he’s been shot,” Bryce replied, indicating Captain Tweedum. Pointing to Casey, he said, “He’s got a stab wound to the stomach. We’ve also got a guy with a gunshot wound to the head strapped into a bed in the back.”
“I’m okay to walk,” Captain Tweedum said, declining Jayne’s offer of help. Jayne turned to Casey.
“Sweet mother of God,” he breathed. “It’s my fourteen times great grandpappy.”
Hearing this, Casey opened his eyes. High on morphine, he studied Jayne’s face for a moment, cocking his head to the side. “Wow… you look just like me… but ugly!”
Jayne unstrapped Casey from his seat. Getting his arm under one shoulder, he lifted him up. When Casey winced, Zoe got under his other shoulder. They helped him into the docking tunnel and onto Serenity.
Mal, Simon, and Bryce had gone to the cell to retrieve Major Lorenz. Very gently, they had moved him to a fold-out stretcher that Simon had brought with him. Now, they were slowly carrying him out of Enterprise onto Serenity.
As Mal and Simon took Lorenz below to the infirmary, Sarah finally released her death grip on Chuck. At the same time, Bryce approached Chuck. “How’s it goin’, Chuck?” he asked.
It took Chuck a moment to realize he was speaking Klingon. “Eh, same shit, different day,” he replied in the same language.
“That seems to be how it goes every time we run into each other,” Bryce laughed, switching to English. “Fulcrum REALLY did a number on you this time, though.”
“So, are these your friends from the 21st century, Chuck?” Kaylee asked.
“Yes, of course,” Chuck said. “Sorry, I can’t believe I was that rude. Kaylee, this is Sarah Walker, from the CIA, and Bryce Larkin, also CIA, and my roommate in college.”
“You mean, the guy who got you kicked out and stole your girlfriend?” Kaylee asked brightly.
“Uh, yeah, he had his reasons,” Chuck temporized, as Bryce gave him a what-the-fuck look.
“So, who’s this, Chuck?” Sarah asked, her voice tightening a little as she realized that Kaylee bore a striking resemblance to the red-headed woman from her dreams.
“This is Kaylee Frye,” said Chuck, stepping back by her and slipping his hand into hers.
“For lack of a better term… she’s my girlfriend.”
Sarah’s eyes went wide… and then everything went black.
Bryce lunged forward and caught Sarah as she collapsed, stopping her just before her head hit the deck. “I didn’t realize she had it THAT bad for you,” he said, looking up at Chuck.
Chuck stepped forward to help Bryce, but he waved Chuck off. “Don’t worry, I’ll get her down to the infirmary,” Bryce said. “I imagine you two probably have some things you’re going to need to talk about.”
As Bryce carried Sarah out of the cargo bay, Chuck turned to Kaylee. “He’s right… but honestly, I don’t even know where to start. I don’t have a clue what to do.”
“It’s okay, Chuck,” Kaylee said, wrapping her arms around him. “Right now, I think we need to go get some sleep.”
“Is that what they call it now?” Chuck asked, a mischievous grin playing across his face as he pulled back to look at her.
“SLEEP, Mr. Bartowski,” Kaylee replied, her voice taking on a serious tone. “I am exhausted, I imagine you are too, and that shuttle’s going to need a lot of help in the morning.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
10:14 A.M.
Sarah swam up through the darkness, approaching consciousness. Finally, she opened her eyes, and turned her head, to see Bryce sitting in a chair beside her and the one they had called Simon watching over Major Lorenz.
“Well, good morning sunshine,” Bryce said.
“What the hell happened?” Sarah rasped.
“Well, let’s see,” Bryce replied. “You’ve been in a shuttle with me, Casey, and two astronauts for seven weeks, flying all over the year 2519. On something like four hours sleep, you single-handedly kept Mullins from re-enacting the Valentine’s Day Massacre onboard Enterprise. You’re probably dehydrated, and you went from zero gravity to full gravity in about half a second. Then, Chuck told you he had a girlfriend, and that was apparently the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
At that last, Sarah jolted upward, just as Simon turned around. “Ah, ah, I wouldn’t recommend sitting up just quite yet,” he warned.
Sarah went light-headed, and quickly laid her head back down on the pillow. “I concur,” she agreed.
“I’m Dr. Simon Tam,” he said. “And you, I presume, are Agent Sarah Walker.”
Sarah nodded. “Okay,” he said. “So here’s the deal. You’re severly dehydrated, you’re malnourished, your muscle tone has been shot to hell by all the time you’ve spent in zero gee, and you’ve got a massive estrogen imbalance that’s being countered by some synthetic drug that I’ve never seen before. I’m trying to flush out your system, and I’ve got you on intravenous saline to rehydrate you, but it’s going to be at least a few hours before I’m comfortable with you leaving the infirmary, and at least a day or two before I’m alright with you leaving Serenity.”
“What about the others?” Sarah asked.
“Well, everybody, including Agent Larkin here, was suffering from the same basic problems as you,” Simon replied. “Dehydration, malnourishment, crap muscle tone, all that. Bryce is otherwise okay. Major Casey actually wasn’t that badly wounded – I was able to get him patched up pretty quickly. He’s up in the crew mess, talking with Jayne Cobb, one of our crew – they’re apparently related.
“Major Lorenz was pretty badly hurt,” Simon continued. “There was luckily no brain damage; however, he lost a rather large amount of blood, and despite everything I’ve done, he’s probably going to need more surgery as soon as he can get to a major hospital. I put Captain Tweedum’s shoulder in a cast; he’ll be fine in a few weeks.”
“What about Enterprise?”
“We’re headed back to Persephone,” Bryce replied. “The damage is way beyond Chuck and Kaylee’s capabilities, so I contacted Utopia Planitia, and they really weren’t too happy to hear from me. I got a lecture from the shipyard commander about taking better care of my ship, and how we’d only been gone for a day, and blah blah blah. They’re going to send up a large container ship, pick Enterprise up in orbit, and then take her down to the planet’s surface for repair. We’re looking at about another week once we reach the planet.”
Sarah paused for a moment, not really knowing how to ask her next question, but finally she just went as simple as she could. “And what about Chuck?”
Bryce didn’t say anything for a moment. “Sarah…”
He shook his head. “He’s quite possibly in the most impossible situation a man can be placed in. We talked about it for a long time this morning. He’s in love… but he feels like staying here would mean abandoning everything he holds dear. He’s gonna need a few days to think about it.”
“I should talk to him…”
“No, I don’t think you should,” Bryce replied. “I mean, I’m not saying you shouldn’t talk to him at all, but I don’t think you should talk to him about this. He still cares about you a great deal, and this is going to be difficult enough for him without your voice constantly in his head.
“This is a choice that Chuck is going to have to make for himself.”
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