Mal woke from a sleep he had been fighting to maintain since his head had touched pillow. It wasn't the first night this had happened. It was the first night in a long while since it had happened. He sat up carefully - his ribs still ached from Niska's machine, even though that had been over a week ago. He hadn't told the doc yet. It wasn't something he hadn't lived through before. Ribs would heal. He knew that from experience. He was more concerned with the dream he'd been fighting in his sleep... Wo de ma, those images were hard to shake.

He got up and, for lack of anything else to occupy his mind, climbed the ladder to the rest of his ship. His Serenity . His home. His reality. He made his way to the bridge, knowing everyone else was sleeping comfortably in their own bunks, capable of counting sheep without the plague of nightmares that were currently haunting him. He checked the course heading, re-read the wave that had invited him and his crew to the job and busied himself with various other tasks that did not need to be done. He cleaned off part of the consule - it looked as though Wash had been eating while flying again. He moved some of the dinosoaurs into new and amusing positions. He stared at the stars as they flew by in the night.

He couldn't get rid of the memories.

He left the bridge, passing Kaylee's brightly lit doorway and wondered if she were sleeping in there or if she was sleeping in her hammock in the engine room again. They were trying to save Serenity from any excessive energy and had turned down heating during the nights. She had plenty of blankets in her bunk, but he worried she might catch a chill in that hammock of hers. He passed his own bunk and continued on towards the engine room, telling himself he wasn't avoiding sleep. He was just making sure his crew wasn't trying to tempt pneumonia.

He stopped short when he saw there was a light on in the dining room. Who could possibly be awake? And why? And would they wonder why he's awake, as well? He stepped for