I don't want to call this a "missing scene", but here is a little snippet I'm interjecting into "Objets in Space." Not even long enough to be a vignette, this may not even be enough for a snippet, but I thank you for reading and hey, how 'bout some feedback.

"To the left. No, your left. Okay, now very gently pull that aside."

Zoe did nothing to hide her tense discomfort. Why she was always tapped for medic duty, she would never know. "This is really not my area of expertise, Doctor. I tend to be putting these into people, more than the other thing."

"Can I mop your brow?" Wash hovered around them like a nervous insect. "I am at the ready with the fearsome brow-mop." Trying very hard to be unobtrusive in his helpfulness, Wash reached out to swab the sweat from his wife's brow as she struggled.

The forceps, slippery metal prize clutched tightly, finally popped free. "You got the bullet. Okay, I'm just gonna pass out for a minute, but you're doing great." Simon felt woozy and not a little queasy, as though his stomach had crawled into his skull and his brain had drained into his belly. It was something of a head trip to watch forceps, retractors and long-fingers burrowing and poking around in his thigh, just as it wasn't technically challenging to provide the suction himself but strange and unsettling to think about.

"You want something for the pain?" Zoe's cool voice snapped Simon out of his drowsy introspection. She seemed to feel more comfortable with the chore of suturing than she had had extracting the bounty hunter's bullet. Simon glanced down at his thigh, which was remarkably blurry. Sure enough, Zoe had irrigated the wound and was doing a very serviceable job of sewing it closed. There would be a scar, a vibrant, squiggly, puckered line on his otherwise immaculate body. He was a bit behind on that score as it was. Zoe, Mal, and Jayne probably had a hundred between them. He shrugged mentally, it wasn't as though anyone would see it. Well, maybe, with a little luck