Angelle is mine, all else belongs to Joss.

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Cantankerous....save for a pretty cool word to say....can-tan-ker-ous....its meaning sucked. Basically, anyone who could be grumpy, crabby, or just not really nice could be called this. Imagine the old man on the front porch with the sawed off shotgun ready to take on anyone that steps on his lawn...or the woman behind you honking her horn because truthfully, doing the speed limit is not her idea of quick enough....or my aunt Lou on a transport ship for the first time in how long nursing a rather nasty bellyache.

"Oh...why did your daddy have to go and get himself shot?" The beautiful woman groaned, though not as pretty as usual with her rather pale clammy skin. I handed her some tea, and hard tack I had, her expression bordering on a look that could kill.

"You got to put something in your stomach, Lou, or the next time you visit the bucket, it's gonna be all bile." I placed a cool cloth on her head.

"I was fine last night and even part of this morning. What the hell happened?" She sipped the hot liquid and gave me a dirty look. It might have been another swamp remedy, but it was the same one I used on me for my space legs and damn it, it worked.

"Like you said, Lou, ain't use to space, yet." She lay on the common room couch, me beside her as Jayne walked toward us, bending to kiss her head.

"You feelin' any better?" He asked almost tenderly and I turned away to hide a smile of contentment when my aunt actually looked up at him in a look I had seen myself give Mal. Was it my imagination or was my aunt fallin' for the big merc?

"A little. Angelle here is trying to get me on that road. Hopefully, within a little while, I'll be back to my old self." She grinned weakly as he bent to kiss her, not once minding the bad breath I'm sure she had. It was almost cute.

"Well, if worse comes to worse, I'll just have to be doin' all the work." And like that, the tender moment was gone as Lou smacked him