"River?" Simon walked along the short corridor leading from the mess hall to the engine room, looking for his sister, "Kaylee, you in there?"
"Yeah." The engineer called back, "What the matter?"
"River's gone missing, again." Simon slouched in the hatch; "I have no idea how she finds so many places to hide in such a small ship..."
"Oh, Serenity'll fool you. Mal chose this ship for a reason: these older model Firefly's have 1,001 hiding places."
"Just what you need when you have a mentally unbalanced teenager with a predisposition for mischief..." Simon sighed, resting his head against the wall, "I took an oath as a doctor that I would do no harm, and I can live with it. But the Alliance scientist who did what ever it was they did to River must have taken the same oath, and yet they did unspeakable things..."
Serenity lurched violently, sending Simon and Kaylee into a heap on the engine room floor. The sound of rushing wind filled the confined space, creeping nervously into the corridor, gaining confidence, experimenting briefly with rushing, and finally storming in with guns blazing. The room shook again as the hatch slammed shut and locked itself, the emergency light flashing an angry read.
"ALL HANDS, REPORT IN!" Mal's worried voice came over the intercom.
" Jayne; I'm in the cargo bay with the Shepard." A gruff voice answered, "No apparent damage here."
"Zoë: I'm in the mess hall with Wash." The first officer reported, "No damage, but the hatches have all slammed shut."
"The is Kaylee." The young engineer had managed to pull herself to her feet, "I'm in the engine room with Simon. We're a little shaken up, but otherwise ok."
"Inara here: I'm in my shuttle with River." The companion reported, "She seems completely unaware that anything happened."
"Oh thank god." Simon knelt on the deck, "What happened?"
"Yeah captain, what in the tyen shiao duh just happened?" Jayne asked over the open link.
"Let me check..." There was the sound of commands being typed into the ships computer, "Lao tyen, boo: looks like we got hit by something, meteorite maybe. Punched clean through; breaching the corridor from the mess to the engine room. Kaylee, Doc, I don't think we're going to be able to fix this in the black: nearest landfall is still Greendale, 18-hours away at best speed. Are you two going to be ok till then?"
"Just peachy, captain; I've got some water and protein-bars stashed back here for when I have to work through mealtimes." Kaylee sounded more cheerful than she felt, " Don't y'go worryin' 'bout us none, we'll be fine."
"Ok, just try and stay cool." Mal sounded agitated, "Wash, Zoë, get up here and let's see if we can shave a little off our ETA."
"So..." Kaylee sat down on the deck, "Look's like it's just you and me then."
"Yeah." Simon nodded, trying to hide his discomfort, with little success, "Don't suppose you've got a deck of cards?"
**********************************
"Um, Simon, do you mind turning round?" Kaylee asked two hours later, "I've got something I need to do..."
"What?" The doctor asked, then realization hit him like a fright train, "Oh! Yeah; no problem." He quickly turned his back as Kaylee moved to the far end of the room, undoing her jumpsuit.
"You know, we're kind of lucky." Kaylee laughed slightly, "The engineers who designed the Firefly class must have spent some time in space, because there's actually a small toilet built into the bulkhead here. There's a trick to using it, but it works and doesn't smell at all."
"Very considerate of them." Simon nodded, doing his best to think of anything other than what was going on behind him. But his subconscious refused to play ball, and hit him with a thousand erotic images cantering around the young woman he was trapped in such a confined space with. He gulped down some water, feeling suddenly very hot and bothered.
Kaylee chirped as she hit the flush button on the wall, "You can look now."
Simon slowly turned, and his heart almost stopped with what he saw: Kaylee had tied off her jumpsuit around her waist; leaving just the T-shirt she wore underneath. You didn't need a doctor's knowledge of anatomy to know that she had nothing on under that: her nipples stood out prominently, even in the relatively warm environment of the engine room.
"Simon?" Kaylee snapped her fingers to bring him back to reality, "You in there?"
"What?" Simon shook his head, "What did you say?"
"I asked if you were hungry. Don't go spacing out on me now: you're the only person in here with me for the next sixteen or so hours. The last thing I want is to go Fong luh from boredom."
"Sorry: I'm just worried about River, that's all..."
"You need to give that sister of yours a break: she's more capable of looking after herself than you think."
"I just get worried about her sometimes."
"Well there's nothing you can do until we hit atmosphere: no power in this 'verse would that door open while there's a vacuum on one side. So, you want something to eat?"