2. We Should Call It, “Your Grave”

After Miranda

“Tell me again why we’re doing this?” Simon asked, watching from the cargo hold while Mal and Jayne lugged the dirt-crusted coffin to the med bay.

“Because Wash was acting strangely just before he died. We’d like you to try to find out why,” Zoe said.

“Strangely, how?” Simon asked, for at least the third time.

Zoe fixed him with her give-it-up gaze. “Strangely.”

“I can’t really give you a differential diagnosis based on the adverb ‘strangely,’” Simon said.

Zoe looked at him darkly for several seconds longer, then said, “He gave up boxers and started wearing briefs.” She turned and stalked off in the direction of the common area.

“Of course.” Simon stared after her, disbelieving. “Who needs a better reason than that to go back to a planet we only just left, dig up a dead guy and do an autopsy?”

Mal and Jayne re-emerged from the med bay. “There’s your body, doctor,” Mal said. “Let us know what you find.”

Simon shuffled unenthusiastically toward the med bay. Jayne and Mal went in the opposite direction. Zoe had arranged herself at the table, where she was cleaning her weapons; Mal retrieved a few of his, and joined her. Jayne, Kaylee, and Inara hovered nearby for a little while, but when it became evident that neither Mal nor Zoe was going to shed any light on why they’d returned to Haven to do an autopsy on a guy who’d pretty clearly died of a Reaver harpoon through his sternum, they slowly dispersed. Kaylee wandered to the engine room, where she puttered about, accomplishing little more than to keep her hands busy. Inara retired to her shuttle and accomplished much the same by re-folding all of her scarves. Jayne stomped off to his bunk and put on one of his porn vids, but even that failed to lift his mood and after a few minutes he turned it off and sulked in silence.

River curled herself up in the airlock on top of the ship where Jubal Early had come, and gone, and sang nursery songs to try to drown ou