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Jan. 10th, 2009 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
0900, ship's time. It's an hour or so after breakfast. (At least for some. Breakfast is a do-it-yourself affair, and on hungover days Jayne doesn't tend to stumble out of his bunk until a good while later.)
It's time for River's daily meds.
This has been a daily routine for years now, so there's no real reluctance in the way she's slowly meandering towards the infirmary. All the same: it's slow.
(Simon often comes to find her, rather than her coming to the infirmary. But she's trying to be nice to Mal.)
It's time for River's daily meds.
This has been a daily routine for years now, so there's no real reluctance in the way she's slowly meandering towards the infirmary. All the same: it's slow.
(Simon often comes to find her, rather than her coming to the infirmary. But she's trying to be nice to Mal.)
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Date: 2009-01-11 05:10 am (UTC)All the same, Mal's been in the infirmary for the past fifteen minutes.
It's just a couple of pills, Reynolds.
He still doesn't like it.
"Wèi," Mal offers to the figure he suspects is behind him in the infirmary doorway.
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Date: 2009-01-11 05:20 am (UTC)River takes a step forward to change that, ghosting her fingertips idly along the corner of the doorframe. Her feet land in barefoot silence: left first, toe then heel, and the right settling next to it a moment later.
"Hi," she answers, solemnly.
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Date: 2009-01-11 05:26 am (UTC)"I got everything together," he starts more awkwardly than he'd hoped. The pills get placed on the seat of the exam table-chair when Mal turns back to find some water for River to take them with.
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Date: 2009-01-11 05:32 am (UTC)"I know," she says.
It's meant to be reassuring.
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Date: 2009-01-11 05:38 am (UTC)The pills get picked up again and placed in River's slight palm, with the water set in the other.
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Date: 2009-01-11 05:54 am (UTC)(This, too, has happened many many times over the years.)
It's slight, though, and more an automatic show of grumpiness than anything else. Without these River would be in much worse shape, and she knows it.
So: down go the pills, and the water.
She holds out the cup, with a certain See? Did what I was supposed to air.
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Date: 2009-01-11 05:55 am (UTC)"When your brother gives me medication, it's usually in a rough-as-hell spray. I think he enjoys it, frankly."
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Date: 2009-01-12 08:15 am (UTC)Beat.
To Mal's hands, she adds, "You make faces." The teasing is a little more distant than usual, and a more subdued than it would be if Simon hadn't just left for another week away.
It's still there, though.
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Date: 2009-01-14 11:37 pm (UTC)There goes one of Mal's more common facial expressions.
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Date: 2009-01-20 07:24 am (UTC)See? her face says, unless that's Yes, and?
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Date: 2009-01-21 10:48 pm (UTC)Mal holds up a piece of paper. It has bullet points.
"You're done."
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Date: 2009-01-22 07:21 am (UTC)(Of course, Simon also has reasons to be.)
"Okay." She doesn't move, yet, though.
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Date: 2009-01-23 12:57 am (UTC)"Wanna beat Jayne at checkers?"
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Date: 2009-01-27 01:13 am (UTC)What River says aloud is, "He won't play me." Jayne is so mean! And, um, unjustified. Yes.
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Date: 2009-01-27 01:15 am (UTC)Mal points with both hands towards the hatch leading into (and out of) the infirmary.
" -- but we ain't doing it in here, so."
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Date: 2009-01-27 01:22 am (UTC)And then River grins, a quick
(comprehending)
flash.
"Okay," she says, and this time she turns, takes three swift steps, and slips through the open door.
Pausing just outside the door, she casts an impish glance over her shoulder. "Race you."
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Date: 2009-01-27 01:29 am (UTC)He's so screwed.
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Date: 2009-01-27 01:32 am (UTC)Later, she'll sit quiet and nauseous on a box, studying her bare toes while the familiar short-term side effects slide through her system; later than that, she'll hold dinner plates carefully in both hands, helping to set the table and feeling the furniture and chopsticks in case her eyes are lying again, because no medicine helps everything, and no medicine helps all the time.
But for now -- for now, River's laughing, and yeah, Mal's screwed.