Inspired by the thread about Zoe's cooking. Just for laughs. Joss owns everything. Joss, I'm sorry...

Malcolm Reynolds had seen devastation before. He had walked across battlefields. He had seen towns after a Reaver attack. He had seen Jayne's bunk after the big man had eaten an entire platter of bad shellfish on New Melbourne. None of it had prepared him for the site in front of him.

Scant minutes before, he had been working outside. With most of the crew down with the flu, he had figured it wise to stay on this little moon a few extra days until Wash and Kaylee at least could stand on their own. In the meanwhile, he and Jayne (the only healthy crew member besides River) were taking the time to cross a few items off Kaylee's fix-before-it-drops-off list. Mal finished repairing the landing strut, then headed inside to cook dinner for his crew. "Cook" was probably a slight exaggeration, but Mal patted himself on the back for stocking an extra case of canned soup last time they had hit a Skyplex.

The ship was unusually quiet, no doubt from the analgesics Simon had dispensed with breakfast. Mal whistled as he made his way up the catwalks. He stopped whistling, as well as walking, and gorram near breathing, when he stepped into the galley.

River crouched motionless on the dining table, looking like a wide-eyed, wild-haired, seventeen-year old gargoyle. Next to her was a piece of what looked suspiciously like one of Serenity's wall panels. Mal noted the multi-colored stains on River's dress, as well as the soot on her face. Her hair was messed to the point where it sprang up like a thicket. He started to say something, but stopped when he realized that, yes, that was actually smoke coming off the ends of her hair.

Part of Mal's brain started screaming at him to just turn around and leave the ship. Mal followed River's unblinking gaze to the galley, and the part of his brain stated smugly, "I told you so." He barely recognized his own galley. Every last door and cabinet had been opened a