Disclaimer: All things Firefly/Serenity are the property of Whedon et al. I'm not making any money off this, just playing with the toys.

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It was cold, goramn cold. And it hurt. Hurt to breathe, hurt to move, hurt to think. Everything was spinning and jumbling in front of him. Shutting his eyes only made it worse. He did about the only thing he could do.

He passed out.

The next time he awoke, the ‘verse had stopped spinning, but was still cold. Maybe he was in the airlock again. Maybe Mal’d finally had enough and was going to do what shoulda been done a long time ago.

He blinked as white bits assaulted his face and eyes. He tried to lick his lips, but his tongue was swollen and not moving too well. His shoulders were convulsing and he dimly realised that they were shaking. His teeth were making a racket too, causing his jaw to become sore. Breathing was hard, laboured. The cold air assaulted his lungs and made him even colder.

Just need t’shut my eyes...jus...fer...a min...

The press of fingers into his neck brought him around a third time and he struggled to move. His body had stopped co-operating at all and he was grateful that the teeth-chattering had also ceased.

Vaguely and through layers of what felt like thick cotton, he was aware of someone calling his name. Through slitted eyes, he caught the face yelling at him. Shutting them, he was jarred awake with a rough push, but it was just so goramn hard to keep his eyes open.

Want t’sleep.

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Mal rubbed his forehead. He was getting a might panicky. If he didn’t figure a way extricate Jayne from outta the room, the hundan was going to freeze to death. “Zoe?”

His first mate calculated what it would take to move the jumbled and heavy cartons that pinned Jayne without causing further harm to the merc. She gave him a look that said what he knew to be true. This was going to hurt something more than fierce.

She stepped over to the injured man and braced her hands on his shoulders. Rive