A/N: Hey guys! New chapt time...again. Still no time to write an actual long, detailed chapter for Adjusting (which you should all totally go read) but enough time to work on a really quick one shot!

Zoe woke up, blinking, and the first thing she registered was pain. Her entire body, but her head felt like there was an armada of purplebacks with machine guns, shooting their way out from the inside. She groaned and tried to sit up, only to be constrained by her husband, and Simon (and the blackening corners around her eyes, if she was gonna be honest). Blinking her vision clear, she decided to try out her throat.

"What happened?" she croaked.

Wash smiled. "You took a little tumble, baby. We weren't sure you were gonna wake up for a little while there." He looked over to Simon. "She gonna be okay, Doc?"

Simon looked his typical, emotionless, slightly pouty self. "Well without some of the instruments that you made me leave in the med bay, I can't be certain, but she looks well enough."

It took a few seconds for his words to completely register in Zoe's foggy mind. Immediately she wore a scowl.

"Why aren't we in the med bay?" Despite the two men trying to push her down, she sat up, and saw that they were inside a shuttle. "Why are we in a shuttle? Where's Mal?"

Wash looked uneasy. "Listen, baby..."

Zoe took a breath to squash the panic rising in her chest. She closed her eyes and mustered a glare. "Wash. Do not pull this go-se with me now. Tell me plain in simple where the Captain is and why the hell I'm hurt and on a shuttle."

Wash looked even more nervous and glanced over at the Doc. "Honey, there was an explosion. Don't you remember? You knocked Kaylee out of the way and took the blast yourself."

Zoe shook her head. She only had foggy memories of laughing at the dinner table.

Wash continued. "Well Serenity's main and auxiliary life support went out, and the oxygen was low. We were running out of time, and Mal decided that we needed to pack four people in each shuttle and have each take off in different directions." He paused and pointed to the back corner. "River's here with you, me, and Simon."

Zoe kept glaring at Wash, and he cleared his throat. "Inara, Jayne, Kaylee, and Book are in the other."

"I think you're forgetting someone," Zoe growled. "Namely Malcolm Reynolds."

Wash opened his mouth to speak, but Simon beat him to it. Without meeting her eyes, he murmured "The Captain...stayed with his ship." He made eye contact for a split second. "I'm sorry."

Zoe froze. He couldn't. That shee-niou tah mah duh hwoon dahn. He wasn't allowed to die and leave her alone. Sure she had Wash, but Wash wasn't Mal. She would always need Mal.

"No."

Wash looked at her. "I'm sorry honey. But maybe someone will stop to help. He might survive and call us back."

Suddenly Zoe's mind started churning. "How long did he have."

"A few hours, tops."

"How long has it been?"

"Maybe...45 minutes."

There was time. There was still time. Zoe glanced over to the corner that Wash had pointed to when he said River was here. She could just see the teenager poking through the shadows.

The little fugitive was sitting scrunched up in the corner with her arms around her knees. She looked up, directly at Zoe, and Serenity's first mate saw something in her eyes. Not something crazy, but something that Zoe could connect to. River nodded, and Zoe knew that somehow the little girl knew exactly what she was thinking. She knew how much she needed Mal to be okay, needed him with her. Looking towards the cockpit, Zoe got up.

"We're going back."

A/N: Review!