Firefly is the property of Joss Whedon, blah blah blah. You know the drill.

Thanks to Guildsister and Apollo for beta reading. Feedback will of course be appreciated.

I realize that I had previously stated that this would be the final chapter. However, when I wrote it, it started coming out a lot longer than I thought it would. So I found a good stopping point and will have the finale in Chapter Six.

A note to all you Shakespeare buffs: Nitro's opinion of Hamlet is not my own, so please refrain from the hate mail. This is merely my injecting some Old West history in the Firefly 'Verse. For those who may be confused, back then, theater troupes would travel out into the Wild West and perform Shakespeare plays so as to help bring civilization to the frontier, the poor, dumb bastards. What I describe below is pretty much the reception they'd get.

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It was almost too easy. Everything had gone according to plan, from goading the doctor, to palming one of the sedatives and faking the switchover. It had nearly gone awry when Clarence had run into Captain Reynolds in the galley. Thankfully, he had been too doped up to notice anything amiss. Clarence was glad to have had the foresight to just carry a few key items in his pockets to prepare the surprise on the bridge. Had he brought along the entire case, even Reynolds' painkiller-fogged brain would have noticed something was wrong.