Title: Hit or Miss 2

Author: Sarafina aka Gifted Spike

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss

Rating: Pg-13 for violence

Summary: How did Mal know about those pesky Reavers? The answer to a challenge issue on Firefly General Romance

Notes: This has not been beta'd. beyond my spell checker in word.

The echo of his boots resonated off the walls as he made his way to the Doc. His head throbbed with each footfall. His stomach felt as though he had eaten a brick of acid the night before. He made his way through the door and the assistant helped him over to the bed. The doctor walked up checking his chart.

"Private First Class Reynolds, what brings you to my neck of this ship?"

"I’m not feel…" He began to empty his stomach contents onto the floor.

An hour and a half later Mal found himself in quarantine. Larenian Flu. 100% contagious for 10 days. Doc said they had caught it before it went into stage 2, which would have put the whole ship on quarantine. He tossed his cards one by one into the trash bin across the room. Worse than the brig really. At least there you weren’t sealed away from everybody.

It was pretty much the same for three days. He had a cabinet full of rations and not a soul stopped by to see him. Then he felt the ship stop. Not unheard of, just strange during a transport mission. Two days later he saw a tech run by his cell, followed by what could only be described as a caveman. Mal hid from view and backed against the sidewall. He let himself slide to a sitting position. ‘What the heck was that?’ Mal could do nothing from where he was. The door was on a time lock for the safety of the ship’s crew.

Two more days went by and from his containment he watched the cavemen he now reasoned were the mythical Reavers take down, kill and skin every person they perused. That’s when one of them noticed him. It threw itself against the door. Mal searched frantically for a weapon to kill it with. Soon it had gotten a few friends and together they rammed the door repeatedly. One they all seemed to listen to showed up and they all left reluctantly.

A day later the door opened. He walked the ship to find that everyone was dead. Everyone.

When the ship answered the s.o.s. call he urged them to blow the ship up, but they did not listen. He heard of their demise on the transport pod taking him to the closest Alliance planet.

*

Mal awoke with his face sticky with drool. He had been thrown across his bed. He sat up and held his head to keep the throbbing in check. He smiled as he remembered the events of last night. Would he answer the question or not.

Nope. He just got a sudden case of amnesia.

End