Disclaimer: the characters, scenario, whole 'verse is not mine.

To the big Tim and all my fellow BC's: You've played with this particularly wonderful toy before and I have only one thing to say: My turn!

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Damn, it’s small in here. Like being inside a closed eye. Dark outside. Not much better inside. I’d do a cartwheel, but I’d probably bounce off one thing or another. I’d laugh at that joke I heard a minute ago--did I hear it or think it? Why was it funny? I don’t remember. It was just funny and if I laughed there wouldn’t be anything else.

I can’t go backwards. Mal can go backwards. In fact, that’s just what he’s doing now. I know I can’t, but I can go forward. For example, I know that soon I will have a memory. A picture. There’s a man with grey hair in the corner smiling at something shiny he’s trying to sell me, but the picture is centered on something rusting in the center. I don’t know how I can remember something that hasn’t happened yet, but I do anyway. That’s how small it is in here.

And the shuttle’s tiny, too.

“How long has it been?” Wash again breaks the silence.

“How long since we left or how long since you asked me last?” Simon makes no effort to hide his annoyance.

Wash’s ass had made an impressive print in his wife’s bedside. As soon as we got on board he put that orange call-back button on the panel and went straight to her. I remember that because I’d forgotten all about orange until now. Won’t be long till I forget again.

Wash shifts uncomfortably. I could tell he had to go, but didn’t want to miss anything. Zoe’s breathing was getting faster, bit by bit. She would wake up soon. Wash would go soon. Interesting to see who went first. Ultimately interesting to see which of the four of us would freeze first. Gonna have to go with me. Smaller than them.

“How ‘bout how long till we all die?”

Wash had left Mal on Serenity all by himself with little to no hope, the