[center][h1]A Little On the Side[/h1][/center]

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/H8nOh5m.png[/img][/center]

[center][h3]Capital City, Osiris, Day 1[/h3][/center]

[hr]

The small army of children disappeared down alleys and backstreets when the China Doll made port, but Sister Lyen stayed behind. Cal motioned for her follow him up the cat walk to the fore of the ship. Once through the galley, he made way for her to pass. The way she carried herself was unlike Marisol's military gate, but the shade of the robe she wore was exactly the same.

"It's Badger" Lyen began, once she and Cal had stepped onto the empty bridge. 

"Here it comes," Cal said under his breath, turning away from the nun, or whatever she was.

"There's something he wants you to do," Lyen watched the back of the Captain's head, gauging her words against his posture.

"But there's something I want you to do instead," her almond eyes waited for his reaction.

Cal balked, "Now that's the first time a nun's asked me to run a side job." He faced her, his jaw working out how he felt about the notion. "Behind his back?"

"Precisely," brown eyes flashed at him; something indignant burned behind that gaze.

"Sister, you've got my full attention."

[hr]

After some time to discuss the particulars, Sister Lyen bid Cal farewell and he saw her aft toward the cargo bay. 

"It's just through that way and down," Captain Strand said pointing the route.

"I know the way," Lyen replied. The nooks and crannies of the Firefly, third class, were as familiar to her as her own mind--or at least, they were. The turn of the stairs down to the cargo bay directly around the infirmary caused her to pause.

There, through that window she could almost see herself--and Dorian and Kate, if she were being honest--at work. The many scrapes and bruises that sent her there; the surgery on Dorian's eye that started her life in a completely different trajectory.

With a sigh to quell the cobwebs, Lyen stepped onto the cargo bay. It was just a ship. But she'd be damned if it wasn't her favorite kind. The Osiris air hit her warm and bright through the open door as she stepped onto the ramp.

[hr]

Cal took the high road to watch the goin's on from the catwalk of the cargo bay. Yuri, sure as the mail, sat in the lawn chair lookin' ratty in his 'lost-and-found' clothes that Abigail'd scraped together. The Sister lingered a moment lookin' over the medbay through the glass before makin' her departure. Havin' seen enough, Strand descended to the bay proper and began unlashing the mule. 

[i]'Sooner we get outta here the better-'[/i] he mused, [i]'Last time we tangled with a "nun", Abigail got a bullet in the pi guh.'[/i] The chuckle that escaped his lips at the thought of Abigail nursin' a flesh wound on the other cheek quickly passed. He had a feelin' the Abigail they'd wrenched from Root was a mite different than the fresh-faced teen he'd hired on Persephone, and that set him all thoughtful.