Disclaimer: Joss & Mutant own everything. It's Joss's 'verse, I just like to fly in it.

Missing, Presumed Dead

"Buzzards the only ones gonna find him now."

Jayne Cobb

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She stared at the card in her hand. "Missing, presumed dead."

With a single touch, the words shifted and changed. "Mrs. Dobson, our sincere condolences. While on routine assignment, your husband, Lawrence Dobson, has gone missing. He is presumed dead and searches have been discontinued."

What followed were details, mostly legal, about how to draw his pay in his absence and what her benefits were. As long as he was missing and not declared dead, there would be no pension, no insurance. There were no explanations, no word of how he disappeared, or what his mission had been. She closed her hand over her stomach, trying to push past the numbness that edged it's way outward, consuming her.

"Oh, Lawrence." She sunk unto a chair. Her father had been right when he warned her about falling in love with a lawman. But she hadn't cared. Nothing could have stopped her from loving him, from being with him. And when he'd asked her to marry him, how could she tell him no?

It seemed only yesterday that they'd stood on the edge of that bioluminescent lake on Ariel, the only honeymoon his law enforcement pay and her own meager seamstress salary had afforded them.

"I love you, bao bei. Ever and always." He'd said so gently, cradling her to him and she had never felt so full, so alive. They'd made so many plans, how he would put in for promotions and be a commander in a few years time. Then he would be able to stay home, and they could start a family. He had promised she could submit her designs to the Blue Sun Corporation's fashion guild and start her own design business. They would have the entire future at their feet.

Missing, presumed dead.

"I'll find you, Lawr. I will." She vowed, closing the card and laying it on the table. Her face hardened with determination. She was th