Life on this boat. A Firefly story. #fanfic

Treasure Hunting part 1

As soon as the mule and hover was ready to go, they set off. Lou had packed for two overnight stays at one of the cottages she had near her bees. She wanted to look in on a couple of sets along the way, something that seemed to exite Wash more than the prospect of finding gold and platinum. They had left Simon on the farm. Inara had left in the morning with a promise to get in touch when she arrived at the temple. River insisted on coming along to speak with the bees.
Jayne was sat with his hat over his face, painfully hung over. By the time the fire had died down he had been barely able to sit up straight, so Lou had, with pretty much everybodys help heaved him onto the couch and left him there. Now he was sat there groaning at every turn.
A few miles in he squinted up from under the hat.
"Remind me never to drink that beer again," he groaned.
"Why?" Lou asked with mirth.
He shot her a murderous look.
"Shame. You seemed to enjoy yourself last night," Lou teased.
"Oh be quiet or you won't be gettin any of my good stuff ever again," he threatened, making Lou laugh.
Wash shot Lou a questioning look in the vein of "mind if I have some fun here". Lou grinned and nodded.
"So, Jayne... last night when you were declaring your undying love for Lou..." Wash started.
"I done none of the sort," a voice mumbled from under the hat.
"Oh... we were ready to wake the shepherd," Wash continued, receiving a whack on the arm from his wife.
The reclined figure on Lou's left suddenly looked very tense.
Lou and Wash exchanged a look and suddenly both were shaking with laughter.
"Very funny. Now let me sleep," Jayne growled under his hat.

Lou guided them to go over to her bees first. The plan was to spend the night in the nearby log cabin that Lou's family used for hunting or during the honey harvest.
On the way over, Lou found herself thinking that if Inara stayed at the temple, she might ask to place a few hives up there to see what kind of honey the famous cherry blossoms would yield.
They approached and Lou pointed out the small forest they were going for when a feeling of dread washed over her. Something was very wrong.
Before the mule was fully stopped she jumped off and ran over to her hives, falling on her knees next to them. They had been kicked over. Every one. All of the square stacked boxes were tumbled out into the grass. A few bees were still hanging around and the whole area was sticky with the scent of raw honey.
"Nooo. No. No. No!" Lou muttered and got to her feet investigating the damage.
The boxes themselves looked intact but the contents were what mattered. The bees built their honecombs in removeable wooden frames that also housed the queen and juvenile bees in so called nursery frames.
Lou dug through the honeycomb.
"What the hell happened here?" Zoe exclaimed.
"I need to find the queens," Lou said trying to find the tell-tale change in pattern of the honeycomb.
"What can we do?" Mal asked.
"Don't step on the comb. If you step wrong you could kill larvae or sleepers. I need them if I am to fix this," Lou said holding a hand to stop them.
River stood still, her head cocked to the side.
"Afraid. The queen influences the swarm through hormones. The queen is afraid," she said.
"Yeah. That's great River. Now if you can tell them to not kill me when I move this one, that would be good," Lou snapped, immediately regretting being sharp to River.
Carefully she restacked three boxes before carefully lifting up the most intact frames and sliding them in.
"The middle one has a queen in it. The one on the left has honey and I found a nursery. Hopefully this queen will accept her adopted larvae as her own," Lou explained. She repeated a similar process with five more hives, working with experience and trained hands.
"Do you not need protective gear to do that?" Wash asked as aggrivated bees surrounded Lou. They had been hiding underneath and between the debris.
"I haven't got any. I can take a few stings Wash. They die if they sting so as long as I am breathing calmly, they see no point in wasting their lives on me," Lou said.
"They remember you," River said.
"I doubt it, River. Bees only live for two years. Queens for five to ten. These queens are three and four year olds. They won't know who I am," Lou smiled.
"They remember your voice, your scent. They tell eachother that you provide for them," River said and walked closer.
Lou shook her head lightly and continied building up.
Jayne took a few steps closer.
"Need any help liftin or something?" He said.
"You'd be like a dinosaur over here and step on my queens, Lou said.
Quickly she lifted another box.
"Actually. If you could get me a framebox from over at the cabin. They are big square metal trays. Says Honey on them," she instructed continuing to work with the ruins.
After stacking seven hives, she had to admit defeat. Three queens were trampled. She found a few nursery frames that she slotted into a couple of the other hives before setting the lids in place. Sadly she picked apart one of the trampled combs to find a still moving queen. Carefully she picked it up and held it in her hand.
"Hello there, your majesty. Seems you've had a bit of a war on your hands," she said.
Carefully she placed her in River's hand.
"Here. Hold her highness for a moment," Lou instructed.
River studied the wingless and defenceless creature in her hand as the rest returned.
"Good. Put as many of those frames as you can unto the trays. They still contain honey," Lou said pointing to a pile of broken frames in the grass. She removed the queen from River's hand and placed her in a hasty stack with one honey frame and a nursery.
"There you go, your majesty. I hope your workers can fix your chamber," she told her and set a lid on it.
"That's it. Not much more I can do today. Or for the next year," Lou said wiping her sticky hands on the grass.
Wash was surreptiously poking his finger at a drop of gold hanging from a blade of grass and putting it into his mouth.
"I'll get you some to taste," Lou said walking over to Jayne taking his big knife out of the holder.
Quickly she sliced the wax off the top frame in the tray and scraped the knife across.
"There you go. Dig in," she said. Wiping the knife on her trousers before handing it back to Jayne who carefully licked the blade to taste the remaining stickyness.
Wash looked at the goo in front of him.
"Who could have kicked them over?" Zoe asked.
"I have a few ideas," Mal muttered.
"Duggar!" Lou growled.