Disclaimer: They're all Whedon's.

Author's Note: I've never done anything but one-shots before, so this is new and different for me. Hope it's a diverting few minutes of reading.

In the golden hours of the morning, sleep leaves Andie like mist burning off the ground. Someone has turned the lights off and carefully tucked a blanket around her. There's a canvas handbag stitched with daises hanging on one bedpost. Mama.

Andie wanders down the hall hesitantly, not bothering to tame the wild weight of her brown hair. Let it mat. And to hell with smudged eyeliner, too. Raccoons are cute.

She’s passing her parents’ room when she hears her mother’s voice, tired and sad. “It’s like the old days, huh? Sittin’ around worrying about the captain, worryin’ about the Feds, and washing blood out of the laundry.”

“Fond memories,” Daddy says. Andie’s rarely heard him so snide.

“You’re angry.”

“He took her to a bar, Kaylee.”

“He was meeting Monty,” Mama says, placating. “It was just the Boot, not some beer and brothel joint.”

“Someone shot at her. On his watch.” Pressed against the wall, Andie flinches. “Someone held a gun in her face.”

“And what did Mal do about it, Simon?” Mama says, a challenge in her tone.

“As near as I can tell, with his trademark brilliance and cunning, he killed a man and risked bringing the Alliance back down on us all.”

“Ai ya, Simon, what was he supposed to have done?”

“Maybe left her at the ranch while he attended his Lowlife Convention!”

Andie doesn’t want to hear any more. She pads downstairs in her sock feet, through the empty waiting room, and back to the infirmary.

"Mornin', mollymawk," Mal says, propped up in one of the two beds down here and grey under the flood of sunlight from the window. He gives her a grimace likely intended as a smile. Daddy’s apprentice, Becky, is standing next to him, filling a syringe with something clear and creepy-looking.

"Good mornin'," Andie says, still clinging to the doorjamb. Becky nods