Dirt...
Fandom: Firefly
Prompt/Title: "Dirt" for the Firefly 100
Wordcount: 200
Rating: PG
Warnings: Character death, it ain't cheerful. Not beta'd.
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money, suing pointless.
Dirt
Dizzy with fever and racking with coughs, River trod lightly over the dusty soil.
Serenity was dirt bound, part of a quarantine order. Alliance people walked around in orange suits and dealt quickly and efficiently with the dead.
The air was tested, the water, the plants, the animals.
Nothing.
She caught the man in charge by the arm. "Ate a bushel of dirt before they died," she giggled at the wary lack of understanding in his eyes as he pulled away. Fever made it more impossible than usual to be articulate and the Alliance hadn’t sent a particularly skilled scientist. This was a barely viable habitat, only the hardy and poor came here.
What to do? She scooped a handful of soil into her hand and carried it carefully to the nearest Alliance worker, flipped off his helmet and rammed the dirt into his face.
When he got sick they investigated the soil and found the virus. It was Simon, barely ill yet, who identified the correct treatment.
They finally let him treat River, in the Alliance ships brig, strapped into a straight jacket and treated like dirt.
Which was what he got to bury her in, three days later.
~*~