Hi! I'm so sorry this took so long. I've kinda been... distracted. Ok, I honestly have no excuse. It shouldn't take so long to get the next chapter up- but reviews would be helpful in encouraging me! *wink*

CHAPTER 5

Alliance scientists watched the vid-screens anxiously, yelling commands at soldiers through the link.

"No, no, no! You idiot! That's not a pool you can swim...(sigh)... Ok, you others see what happens? The pool is acid, and it kills..."

"Hey, dodge the laser, dodge it- how badly are you damaged? A couple fingers? That's nothing- just step over the red line... yes, very carefully..."

"Yes, you can walk on the blue light. Yes. I know light isn't normally solid, but this isn't a normal place, is it?"

Commander Alpine observed for a few more minutes before calling the head scientist to him. "Report."

"Well, sir, the labs are fighting against any exploration- very intelligently, I might add. I think there must be some kind of governing AI, controlling the thing. Every now and then we catch hints of a voice, sir, but nobody can make anything out." The scientist kept half his attention on the screens, even as he gave his report. It was clear he found this as some sort of challenge.

"Get back to working on it, then."

"Yessir!" The overexcited scientist made his way back to one of the microphones.

"No, you can't catch the bouncing ball- it's made of..."

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Wash paced the kitchen area, squalling baby in hand. "Shhhhhhh, little princess, it's ok. Momma's getting you some milk as we speak. Shhhh, please baby." He cooed and rocked, desperate for some peace.

Not paying attention, he stubbed his toe on the companion cube, which had been left by itself for a rare moment. "Motherless son of a -" Wash set Sara gently on the box so he could rub the offended toe, only to look up as the screaming cut off sharply.

"Princess?" Sara cooed at her father, her earlier unpleasantness forgotten. Wash reached out and let her wrap a tiny hand around his finger, smiling. "Who's a happy baby?"

The rest of the crew filtered in, ready for the small celebration they'd planned for the new additions to the ship. Chell meandered toward the cube.

"Hey Mal? Can we go back to that moon? I gotta get me one of these; maybe I'd actually get a decent night's sleep." Wash gestured at the bundle of joy currently balanced on top.

"Not right now, Wash. But maybe if you're nice to Chell, she'll let ya borrow it from time to time." Mal watched Chell nod happily.

Inara and the Doc brought out a cake cobbled together from protein packets and a bit of chocolate someone had been saving for a rainy day. As the strange family gathered around the table, Zoe had something to say.

"I've never been one for talk, ya'll know that. But I'd just like to say- Thank you. I'm not sure what we would've done without ya. I'm glad my baby girl has so many people to love her." She wiped away a tear, probably due more to the residual hormones in her body than anything else.

Mal patted her back awkwardly. "Let's welcome the two new additions to our crew the best way we know how- let's eat!"

As cake was passed around to the crew members, River started giggling. Chell nudged her, and pointed at the cake. Taking some of the icing, Chell sketched a simplistic cake design on her plate with her finger. River took her own finger and added the word "Lie" underneath. Both girls broke down in laughter.

"So, Simon…" Simon tore his gaze away from his little sister actually enjoying herself in order to look at the Captain. "I'm not going to have to start a nursery around here any time soon, am I?" The rest of the crew hid sly grins as Simon turned beet-red.

"N-n-n-" Kaylee leapt in to save her set-upon boyfriend. "Why, Captain? You and Inara have something to share with the rest of us?" The companion did classic, very unladylike, spit-take as her skintone began to match Simon's.

"I, uh, uh…" Mal stuttered, before nudging Jayne and changing the subject. "Jayne, didn't you have a gift for the new baby?" Jayne grinned and pulled a poorly wrapped package from under his chair.

"Ma sent it when she heard you was 'spectin'." He tried to hand it to Zoe, who had her hands full with the baby. Flustered, Jayne edged around the mother and handed the gift to Wash, who had noticed his discomfort.

"Jayne, are you scared of the baby?"

Wash watched with amusement as Jayne hemmed and hawed before finally saying, "I'm not scared o' her, I'm scared I might break her. She's jus' so small and…" he peered at the bundle in Zoe's arms, "..squishy."

Wash grinned, then pulled open the present from Ma Cobb. "It's a hat!" And so it was: a miniature version of Jayne's, only in blue and pink. Wash carefully arranged iit atop little Sara's head.

Jayne looked on in pride. "Them's both baby colors, on account of we didn' know if she was a girl or boy."

Inara patted his back in surprise. "That's very thoughtful of you, Jayne." Mal glanced over his little crew and wondered if, just maybe, they could enjoy this happiness for a while

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Commander Alpine was having another meeting with his head scientist. Well, a head scientist. They had started a betting pool on how long this one would last before deciding to just go on the testing track himself. Current bet was up in 4 hours.

"As I was saying, we could learn so much if we just had proper test subjects. The course seems to be geared toward a certain breed; they should be agile and intelligent." The scientist looked down at his own coffee-grown gut and frowned. Betting participants suddenly began lengthening their estimates.

"Why do we need this information so badly? Surely we have it backed up somewhere?"

"No, sir. Aperture was a private company and a closed system. The only way we can get to the data is through the AI's security. So far, the only things we have managed to gain access to are the security tapes from the past 5 years." Alpine followed the scientist as he led the way to a screen showing an image of a young girl. "The most interesting thing that has changed is this, sir. A test subject was released, returned, and then left again. She's the only subject we have any footage of, but she appears to have been most successful. And you'll never guess who she left with."

Alpine's eyes widened as he stared at the people on the next image. "This could be very interesting indeed."