Red Run 1: Runnin’ (Warning: Serenity Movie Spoilers)

Serenity, Firefly, and any mention of the ‘Verse associated with them is entirely the property of the storytelling genius Joss Whedon, and also the property of the evil Fox Corporation. This fanfic is not for reproduction nor for sale. It is freely distributed as an effort of appriciation.

Time: Few weeks after the deaths of Shepard and Wash.

Mal reflected for a moment on the situation of Serenity and her crew.

They weren’t rich, but they weren’t poor neither. Money that they’d stolen during the Trading Station Robbery was still available, even though they’d been hit by Reavers during that raid and nearly lost Jayne after he was shot thru the leg with a Reaver harpoon. Later, after an ill-fated but successful effort to expose an Alliance plot hatched on the forgotten out-world of Miranda, Serenity had crashed and been forced to sit idle for a few weeks at the base of one Mr. Universe, Cortex guru and all around techno-junkie….now deceased at the hands of an operative for the Alliance Parliament. An operative who’d seen the error of his ways.

Plenty of parts had been available after an epic battle between a fleet of Reavers and a matching squad of Alliance ships in the Black above this world. Enough parts to sorta repair Serenity well enough for flight, and with a number of parts left over as gravy for resale.

Salvaging valuable parts from destroyed Reaver and Alliance vessels, and from Mr. Universe’s lair, had proven to be lucrative…albeit emotionally distasteful. Looting the dead presented few problems to Mal. Stealing from a person Mal knew, and who he owed a tremendous debt of gratitude to, did. Taking from Mr. Universe skirted dangerously close to this self-perceived line in Mal’s mind. Amazingly, it was Jayne who’d solved the moral dilemma one day while Mal had stood at the loading ramp, looking upon the surrounding landscape of the somewhat bleak world.

“Reckon we can’t leave all this stuff just lyin’ around, eh Mal?” Jayne’s expression was hopeful yet reserved when he’d asked. He wanted the money, but he was feeling bad about the how of it as well.

Mal didn’t speak an answer.

“Lotsa good stuff here,” Jayne tried again.

More silence.

Jayne kicked the ground with his toe. He’d already assumed that Reynolds was going to follow the moral route and leave behind any goods. In desperation he tried one final shot.

“I’se just thinkin’ Mr. Universe wouldn’t a wanted none of those Alliance bastards to have his stuff. I wouldn’t reckon he’d mind us profitin’ if it kept their gorram hands off it.”

Mal had kicked some dirt of his own while his eyes hardened. The sun was setting in the distance, but he wasn’t squinting.

As darkness fell on the tragic world, Mal, finally, in answer had said, “Reckon your right.”

They’d taken the more expensive items that were capable of being carried aboard Serenity. Some of the money salvaged (or stolen, if you prefer) had gone to repairing Serenity after they’d limped her away from Mr. Universe’s home, leaving behind the buried bodies of two crew members and the newly deceased Mr. Universe. Two crew members beloved by all, remembered by all, and hopefully….someday…avenged by all those who had known them. For now, they had to survive. In body, this wasn’t so difficult. In spirit, it was somewhat different for Malcolm Reynolds.

Before Miranda, Mal’s comfort had always come from the freedom offered by the Glamour of the Black. Worse than any sweet seductress’s siren song, the Black could free a man while at the same time exacting a price that bordered on a Faustian bargain. They were still flying…but at a terrible cost in the lives of good friends. The infinite promise of exploration and freedom in the Black now just seemed like the empty space between worlds to Malcolm.

Mal sometimes thought of quitting now. Selling Serenity, and leaving the Black forever. Returning to a planet, and touching the dirt for the rest of his life. He might have done it too, if not for the fugitive status on himself and his crew. His obligation to Kaylee, Inara, Simon, and River kept him from this course of action. His obligation to Jayne? Well…not so much.

They were running now. But if the Alliance wanted to hound him across the ‘Verse, he’d play their game, and maybe teach them a few new rules along the way. The war and life since had taught him a few. Wouldn’t be right to keep all that learnin’ to himself.

And from now on, if they wanted Malcolm Reynolds, they’d better be willing to bring lots of body bags.

Because Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of the Firefly Mid-Bulk Transport Craft “Serenity, ex-sergent in the “Balls and Bayonets Brigade”, and survivor of the battle of Serenity Valley on Hera, had done something he hadn’t done for 7 years.

Malcolm Reynolds had gone back to War.

They had seen several worlds after they buried Shepard and Wash. A casual observer could have been forgiven for believing the course of Serenity was aimless in these days following what they now called “The Reaver Deal” among themselves. Even many of the crew saw no pattern in their movements, and assumed (incorrectly) that this was Mal’s plan to evade the Alliance; by never knowing where they were going, the Alliance could never second-guess them. Only one crew member had seen a pattern in Mal’s orders. That, even though it appeared random, Serenity was steadily making her way toward the furtherest border worlds of the Alliance. This crew member might have mentioned this fact to the others, but she’d elected to keep silent, and instead spent her time observing the copulatory skills of her brother and friend…which, although lacking in the Companion recommended techniques for pleasuring, still incorporated a fascinating raw enthusiasm.

Even though he was frequently engaged in this copulatory activity (and unaware that his prowess was being evaluated by his younger sister), Simon still found time to consider the issue of River’s mental condition. Marked though her improvement had been of late she wasn’t 100% and Simon still held out hope for a total cure. To this end, he pressured Mal to allow him roaming rights while on stopover Worlds. Simon had become quite skilled in learning about the local medicinal practices that a world had to offer…and learning all these within the five or six hour stopover time periods that Mal allowed. Simon would’ve been more pleased if River were a more willing patient than she was, but he managed to continue a hit-or-miss therapy of sorts with her. Studying backwater worlds for clues wasn’t fun, and it took more time away from the ship than he wanted, but Simon’s quest to find a cure had been a motivating force for so long now that he found he wasn’t ready to abandon it yet. And besides, he often found out other things while in port.

Of course, Simon wasn’t the only one seeking out information while in port. His attention tended to be focused uniquely on the needs of River. All of them sought out information now; important to them in ways they’d previously never given much thought to. Gossip, hearsay, planetary newscasts…all of these found their way into discussions around the kitchen table. What they found as they flew World-to-World was shocking.

Something had happened to the ‘Verse while they’d been stuck repairing the wrecked Serenity. Flashing at quantum speed across the galaxy, news of the Alliance G-32 Paxilon Hydrochlorate experiment on Miranda served to attack, bit by bit, the image created by that body after it’s victory in the Unification War. People were becoming mistrustful of their government. People who’d never previously questioned the Alliance.

Miners on Davoria, who felt their wages were being manipulated by government pricing controls, pointed to Miranda as proof of how far the government would go, and applied it to their own situation. The word “strike” became commonly heard. Alliance soldiers learned to their regret that walking in patrols of 5 or fewer was a bad idea on Davoria.

MorningGlory, a beautiful world peopled with neo-Pagans, reported a work stoppage from their elite medicinal makers…in protest over the uses of herbal extracts for purposes other than benign. Famed throughout the Worlds for their gardens of herbs, the work stoppage was a blow to their corporate master Blue Sun Health…until the Alliance moved in and ordered a resumption of work. Communication from the world had stopped per Alliance security order…but herbal medicines were again being sold to supply houses, albeit in smaller quantities.

Darker Hart, an elite hunting world resort, fell into a virtual panic when one of the their safari laser-bearers contracted a rare neurological disease that was spread by the local Dinesian Fly. A heretofore unseen mutation in the virus had caused excessive itching under the skin. In order to alleviate the itching, the patient had resorted to scratching his flesh with a straight razor, and subsequently leaving bloody marks on his arms, legs, and chest.

Observers assumed that the patient was suffering from G-32 Paxilon Hydrochlorate poisoning and was reverting into Reaver-like behavior. Given that the Pax Transmission was being discussed ad nauseum throughout the ‘Verse at this time, it’s perhaps forgivable that the guests and denizens of Hart came to believe the patient suffered this condition. Less forgivable was their response.

An impromptu firing squad composed of locals and resort guests had entered the first victims’ ward and shot him to death with a laser on full burn. It might have ended there except for the unusually high fly infestation that year; Alliance animal husbandry having failed to anticipate a new fly generation that was immune to current insecticides. As the flies spread, so did the virus. Local officials quarantined the world, unsure if they had a Pax poisoning on their hands…and afraid to ask the higher ups in Alliance to either confirm or deny that they did. Or didn’t.

The stranded guests had begun killing each other whenever symptoms manifested themselves, fearful that delay would mean death at the hands of new born Reavers. People who observed their fellow guests being murdered when they showed symptoms often elected to run (or fight) when they felt the onset of the disease themselves. Those who elected to fight served to spread the rumors that the disease caused homicidal psychosis. 5000 people were murdered or died when they headed into inhospitable countryside during the panic that followed before it all got straightened out. Paradoxically, many of the guests blamed the Alliance even though none of its agents were involved in either the disease formation nor its spread. Looked at more broadly though, perhaps they were right to do so.

Everywhere...it seemed…had begun to question the Alliance. Asking for either reassurance of the Alliance’s basic goodness, or else nodding sagely at the demonstration of widely believed evil, Worlds around the Alliance sphere formed their own opinions about the truth of Paxilon, and questioned the effects it promised for the future of their own Worlds. Among those worlds that believed in the inherent wickedness of the Alliance, an old mindset was beginning to reassert. A mindset that contained at its core the belief that “We can do it better ourselves.”

And as if all this wasn’t enough, the spate of true Reaver attacks around the Alliance had suddenly swelled into a flood. Commerce traders suddenly found years-old “safe” routes across the Black to have become raiding points for Reavers. Many an outworld settlement stopped sending out communications, and would later be discovered burned out and destroyed in characteristic Reaver fashion.

One clever Cortex wit opined, jokingly, that it almost seemed like the Reavers themselves had listened to the Paxilon Transmission, and were reacting in renewed fury toward the people responsible for their condition. Although it started as a joke, this theory gained rapid overnight credence after the reports of the destruction of a settlement on Tinadine. Written in blood on one of the walls of the settlement was the word, “Miranda”. On this wall were over one hundred bloody handprints. All of them from the right hand. Initially, investigators assumed that one Reaver had repeatedly pressed his hand in blood and then decorated the wall. Closer investigation revealed that the handprints were from over one hundred individual Reavers, clearly imprinted by pressing their right hands onto the surface.

It hinted at cooperation between Reavers…believed before this time to be generally incapable of communicating and acting with other members of their own kind beyond a small group.

It hinted that Reavers recognized and identified with each other.

It hinted that Reavers were aware of their condition, and why, and that they blamed the Alliance…and all the members of the Alliance…for that condition.

It hinted that Reavers were not only savage, but capable of intelligent direction, of realizing cause and effect, and of acting in concert.

These revelations terrified everyone. Animalistic monsters that killed savagely was one thing. Intelligently directed animalistic monsters was another-- and more frightening--thing.

People called for answers from the only source they knew, even while distrusting the source when it answered.

In short, the Alliance of Worlds was finding itself besieged on all fronts.

Which meant the Alliance was distracted.

Aboard Serenity, the crew relaxed slightly. Their enemy was currently occupied. Even Mal eventually agreed that they could take some extended times in port. They all missed the human interactions on the Worlds, and were excited at the prospects of being able to plant feet planetside for longer periods.

Perspective: Mal

Now in Tylertown, on the World of Paquin, with Serenity repaired and the prospects of immediate and bloody death at the hands of either the Alliance or scavenging Reavers no longer immediate, Malcolm Reynolds had relaxed enough so that the stopover almost felt familiar.

He had ulterior motives beyond the usual resupply stop. The doc had heard about a miracle cure in Tylertown while talking to a medico back on Fortune’s Dame. He’d mentioned to Mal that he wanted to stop in Tylertown to check it out. Mal didn’t mind now that it looked like the Alliance wasn’t breathing down their necks. Besides which, the other members of the crew had the need to touch planet for a while their ownselves. The deaths of Wash and Book had affected them all deeply, and Mal knew that the crew hadn’t had time to think much while running and could use a little time to lose themselves in diversion once their minds kicked in.

“Truth to tell, I could use it too, but that aren’t in the cards for me. Not while everybody else needs lookin’ after,” Mal thought.

Although Mal knew beforehand that it wouldn’t help Zoe much, he’d still ordered her to assist Kaylee in securing some supplies. Kaylee would have preferred to go off with Simon and had been disappointed at first until Mal had told her he was sending Zoë with her. Kaylee had stared at Mal for a couple of moments, and then grinned. “Shiny, Capy-Tan”.

When asked by Kaylee how much time they’d had before they needed to get back, Mal had allowed “Sometime-ish. And you can do a bit o’ drinkin’…if you’re of the mind”. The zest for life that dripped off Kaylee like honey would hopefully splash on Zoë. Weren’t much chance of it takin’ hold through the grief over Wash, but Mal wanted to see Zoe happy up just a little, and one thing Kaywinnit Lee Frye had to spare was happiness.

To Zoë, Mal simply said, “Keep an eye on Kaylee. Don’t ‘spect no trouble, but we need those supplies. Watch over her when she’d having fun. She’s liable to do a little drinkin’.” Tasked with an obligation outside herself, Zoë might not realize she’d been suckered into an entertaining day…until it was too late. Zoë would realize what Mal was doing eventually. She was too shrewd to miss it. Stoically, she’d probably never reveal that she knew, but Mal knew she’d know. It would also show her that even though Wash had died, there were still folk who cared about her. That weren’t nothin’.

So Kaylee and Zoë had gone off “girl stuff buyin’” and were also commissioned with picking up any info they could on recent events around the Alliance. They’d spent the better part of a day and had come back with food, new clothes, new hairdos, a catalyzer traded from another Firefly class that Kaylee had seen in port, and some informational tidbits…and somewhat tipsy after a few drinks at a local bar. As Zoë had climbed the ramp, Mal had observed a now-rare smile on her face. Which to Mal’s mind made the whole day worthwhile.

On the information front, the Paxilon broadcast that Mal and the crew had sent around the galaxy was still having major effects. Politicians who were getting fires lit under their butts by worried constituents were having to offer up more and more reassuring lies to the questioning populace. Those lies were falling on progressively deafer ears. Interestingly, Zoë reported that she’d overheard some firebrands in the bar beginning to mouth the old pre-war Independence phrases, but they didn’t have any real plans…yet. Mal figured they’d do nothing but get people killed if they moved too soon. If a Second Independent campaign was launched, the organization needed to be ten times better than the first time. But the sentiment was coming back.

It was a start.

River had stayed aboard ship while in Tylertown, and totally disappeared. Mal had half-heartedly searched for her in the usual public places of Serenity, and completely failed to find her.

“Probably merged with the ship again”, he thought to himself.

If she wanted some “me-time”, he was amenable. ‘Verse knew she was entitled. He supposed it was possible that she’d hidden out in Inara’s shuttle but he somehow doubted it. The companion had elected to stay aboard herself, locked in her shuttle.

Inara had recently spent a powerful amount of time on the Cortex researching something. When Mal had questioned her, she’d only replied, “Scheming, Mal. Scheming.” She had passed Mal on the way to the kitchen once during the day, muttering to herself, only vaguely acknowledging Mal. Not typical Inara behavior, but acceptable enough on a day off. She needed the time away to think about things as much as he did.

He himself had elected to stay aboard, and do some thinking while the others were gone, but it wasn’t powerful thinkin’. Mostly about Shadow…gone now to him, and about some good times he’d had. Rather a pleasant sort of nothing day had passed. After Kaylee and Zoë returned, and as dusk approached, Mal began to be a little apprehensive about Simon and Jayne, the only two members of the crew still Out.

Mal wasn’t overly worried about Jayne. He really wasn’t expecting Jayne to come back before midnight, and there was always the possibility that Mal would have to go pick Jayne off some bar floor. He’d done it more than once, ’Verse knows. For Jayne, the time given to him for diversion would mean a series of drunken episodes punctuated by violence and meaningless animalistic coupling(s?) in alleyways and bars that Jayne somehow managed to find on any world in the ‘Verse. Jayne’s episodes on this occasion promised to be more vicious and frenzied than on previous occasions. He had a lot to work out. Book had been, if not friend to Jayne, at least the closest thing Jayne had seen since…..well….probably Ever. To Jayne’s way of thinkin’, this would mean some low life jung se mah who thought himself a badass was going to have to explain to Jayne why the ‘Verse would choose to crap on Jayne Cobb personally by killin’ off his only friend. The subject of Jayne’s questioning might survive. Might not. As long as they were bad folk, Mal cared very little. He was more disposed to good feelings about Jayne Cobb than not-good-feelings as of late. Events havin’ gone as they had done.

On a more practical note, and more in keeping with his job aboard ship, Jayne always managed during stopovers to find time to explore his other passion. Weaponry in all its forms. Mal encouraged this subtly. Tylertown having something of a repute in finding, acquiring, or making illegal weapons helped in his decision to influence Jayne. He wanted to know as much about weapons merchants around the border worlds as he could.

For future reference.

The doctor had a self-appointed quest of his own. Seems that Tylertown’s reputation for illicit arms was only exceeded by its reputation for in-bred children. Not a noteworthy distinction necessarily when measured against the plethora of Border Worlds that had too few infusions of fresh genes and lots of long evenings with nothing better to do, but Tylertown managed to exceed mere convention in this regard and reach for heroic standards of incest. Drooling children of both sexes sprawled and begged in the streets, victims of their own inbred idiocy.

To add insult to injury, Tylertown was cursed with a moderately higher level of background radiation than Earth-that-was Standard due to poor processing at a local mining camp that still took radioactive taldinian out of the ground. One effect of this was to screw up communication systems that operated by radio or other radiation. The other effect was more damaging. Long term exposure to the residents of Paquin tended to mess with genetic markers, which in turn led to birth defects. Normal couples that weren’t cousins still had concerns about their newborn until they’d seen the fingers and counted the toes. Sometimes even after that.

The irony of the situation was not lost on Mal. While Jayne roamed the backwaters of Tyler’ lookin’ for guns and violence, the doc had gone to town looking for healers. A world with more than its share of gibberin’ half-folk could come up with some odd cures. They had too. Weren’t no Alliance medicine gonna come their way. Folks had to make do, and sometimes the makin’ do would turn out better than the government stamped “official” cures. Most of ‘em were snake oil, and sold by men who were worse than snakes themselves, but every once in a while they’d hit paydirt. That was how Tricyclotoxin was discovered five years before. Used as an animal tranq out on a border world. Now every hospital in the ‘Verse used it for surgeries and such. Leastways, that’s what the doc said. No tellin’ that some border doc might not stumble on a good mind medicine. Far fetched and unlikely? Probably…but it still represented hope to Simon, and Mal wasn’t going to step on it.

“I don’t care WHAT you believe, just BELIEVE in it.” Mal remembered the dying words of another. Such a bad time to have been hearin’ such true words.

Which was how the doctor ended up walkin’ the same back alleys that Jayne Cobb walked. Ironic, sure ‘nough, but if the Doc had cottoned on to a story ‘bout a home cure for schizo people and wanted to go check it out himself, Mal wished him well. Couldn’t fault him for still hoping to bring River up to the normal human level with drug therapy. Although Mal had a few thoughts on that topic that might not match the doctor’s. He’d tell the doctor…eventually. Just hadn’t told ‘em to the doctor yet. But that conversation was coming. Soon.

Before he left, Mal told the doctor that he might as well pick up something to fix Jayne, bein’ as he was picking up brain medicine. The doc looked startled for a moment, then thoughtful. “I suppose I could pick up some arsenic while I’m out.”

Mal chuckled again at the memory of that comment.

Now, as dusk approached, Mal found himself increasingly worried about Simon. As his sister had once said, “He takes such looking after.” Mal could agree with her assessment now as he found himself beginning to look for Simon’s return.

Right before Sunfall, Jayne had come back…carrying an unconscious Simon in his arms.

Without a word, Jayne dropped the doctor unceremoniously to the deck and hit the ramp retract. “Tell the crazy girl, get us in the air…NOW!”, he hollered.

Mal didn’t have to. By that strange power of hers River was already there.

“Simon!”, she screamed and threw herself forward, beating Mal to Simon’s prostrate form by only a nano-second. Mal could see the blood running down his face.

Touching his hairline, and probing the wound, River suddenly looked relieved. “Laceration of the skin. Vascular rupture. Surface only. He’ll be fine.” Directing one of her quizzical looks upward she lapsed into what Mal was beginning to call “Vision Talk”. “Red. Blood red. Running. Running.” She directed her gaze back onto Mal, suddenly sane again. “I’m trusting you to take care of him for the next little while.”

Whirling on her bare feet, she sped for the flight deck.

Jayne watched her run away. Mal suspected him of “special hell” thoughts until Jayne spoke. “Always scares me to see that girl move faster than Man has a right to.”

Mal frowned. “She did seem to run out quicker than I’ve ever seen her move afore. ‘Cept that time with Mingo and Fanty at their bar.” Glancing up at Jayne, he unconcernedly continued. “Reckon that means we’re in horrible danger.”

Jayne appeared a great deal more fretful than Mal and said, “Yeah. Again!”

Mal maneuvered Simon to a nearby crate and propped him upright.

The doctor groaned.

Mal touched his arm. “Easy on there doc. You’ve been hurt a bit. We’ll be takin’ you to the Infirmary in a spell.” To Jayne, “Call the crew.”

Jayne swept out his arm, struck the claxon alarm, and simultaneously toggled the intercom. “All of ya. Get your asses to the loadin’ bay.”

Jayne turned off the intercom, and stared at it for a second. He retoggled it. “’Cept for you crazy girl…you don’t need to come here. Cause you was already here. And ain’t no need of ya to come back. ‘Cause you need to be flyin’ the ship.” Pause. ”Remember?” He stared at it another couple of seconds. “That is all.” He flipped it off.

By now, Inara, Zoë (with her carbine) and Kaylee had arrived on the loading bay. They, along with Mal, were all staring at Jayne, marveling at how a man could experience total brain lock and yet still remain standing. Kaylee though noticed Simon’s condition and flew to his side.

Seeing their looks, Jayne asked, “What?”

A loud click sounded from the intercom. “Understood Jayne. Estimated time of departure in 15 seconds.” Another giant click sounded. Then a third as the intercom reengaged. “Mal, I’ll get coordinates from you after we break atmo on our next destination. Right now I’m just grabbing sky until we get out of the system.” Then in an amplified sotto voce voice that reached every corner of the ship. “I think Jayne’s brain has frozen. He can’t talk. Cold thoughts. Makes sense his brain would freeze. Colder than space. Space is a vacuum. Like Jayne’s brain…” With another giant click, the voice of psychotic reason was silenced. For the moment.

The ship’s engines increased their roar until they began to smoothly lift off.

Mal broke that silence, pointing at the doctor. “Care to lift and tote a little further Jayne? That is…iffin’ your brain ain’t gonna drop out on the floor as an ice sculpture?”

Simon, his eyes closed by blood but clearly revived, spoke up. “I can limp to the infirmary on my own, captain.”

Kaylee offered her arm. “No you won’t. I’ll help you.”

Mal regarded the two of them as they left. Once Kaylee left the room, it freed Mal to do something he was planning. Would have been better if Jayne’s hands were occupied, but you can’t have everything.

Mal’s hand dropped to his holstered pistol. He tightened his grip and began to draw.

An amplified voice suddenly boomed out, “Don’t do it, Captain. Jayne didn’t do anything wrong. He saved Simon. Ask him how. Oh…and I think we’re all safe for the moment. Don’t ask me how I know that.” Then clicked off again.

Mal paused in his motion, and looked skyward. “ Wouldn’t think of it.” He said, in answer to her last comment. To Zoë: “We have GOT to get that intercom fixed. And by fixed, I mean broken.” He turned a significant look on Jayne. “Well?”

Jayne, now that he realized he wasn’t about to be terminally reprimanded, puffed up his sarcasm. “Weren’t no repeat of history Mal. We was both jumped.”

Seeing the somewhat confused expression on Inara and Zoë’s face, Jayne attempted to move the topic away from past treacheries. Treacheries that were unknown to some members of the crew.

“Stopped off at Stalin’s Drinkery. Ordered up some Alliance brandy. Good stuff.” Seeing a dark look from Zoe at the mention of anything Alliance, Jayne hurried on. “Anyways, that’s when I looked out the window and seen doc walkin’ down the street headed back here. Figured I’d go ahead and come on back my own self. Stalin wasn’t happy I stiffed him on a drink or two, but he didn’t follow me or nothing.”

“So I get outside, and doc’s bout a half block ‘head a me.” Jayne grinned. “Kinda figured I’d give him a little scare. So I snuck on him and dropped my hand on his shoulder and kinda yelled, “Freeze. You’re under arrest.” You ain’t never seen someone jump like that boy can jump when you scare him. ‘Course…I’ll give him this….he turned around and started swingin’.” Jayne rubbed his jaw. “ Got in one good lick, too!”

Mal expression said hurry up.

“Yeah. So’s anyways…we start walkin’ back together. I’m kinda razzin’ him about hittin’ like a girl. He says next time he’ll just kick lower and run. So I tell him that’s another girl fightin’ technique.

“I guess that got under his skin, cause he takes another poke at me, only I dodge and he slips and falls in the street. All the retard beggars and folks passin’ by are laughin’ at him for bein’ a fool.” Jayne grinned. “It was real funny.”

“So he’s rollin’ in the street, tryin’ to stand up, when all of a sudden he points behind me and says “Jayne…look out!”. Course I’m thinkin’ that’s the oldest trick in the book, and doc figures on sluggin’ me when I turn my back. Then I remembered the doc was raised on a Core world, and he ain’t never read that book. So then I’m thinking I better move purty quick. So I sidestep,” Jayne lifted his shirt to show a shallow cut along his back, just below the ribcage “only I ain’t quite fast enough to keep from gettin’ scratched. But the fella tryin’ to stick me weren’t expecting me to move outta his way, and he goes past me and almost trips over the doc’s feet.”

Mal held up his hand to stop Jayne. “’Nara, run down to the Infirmary and bringin’ back some alcohol and press-bandages iffin’ you don’t mind.” Without a word, the Companion quickly left the room.

Jayne continued. “Well you know me Mal, I don’t like it when someone tries to kill me. So I go for my clutch piece on account of I ain’t carrying nothin’ on my hip….to keep a low profile, you know? Took me a couple of seconds longer to reach behind my back and pull it out. ‘Bout the time I lined up on him, he took a swipe with that big go-se knife of his and batted the doc on the head. You can tell the knife weren’t too sharp. It didn’t cut me or the doc that deep. Plus which, the doc was pullin’ away. But it knocked him out and he fell down. Fella was standin’ over him and still actin’ serious. He was startin’ to bend over and rear back with his knife even though doc was outta the fight. He weren’t playin’ Mal; he meant to finish the doc. So I popped him in the stomach with a round and then gave him one in the head to let him know the fight was over.”

“Course I’m cussin’ some and wondering why some guy tried to rob us in daylight when it woulda been better to wait cause night was gonna fall soon. Plus which, I wasn’t too sober at that moment. I wasn’t thinkin’ too clear.

“Wasn’t much of a crowd left but what there was I wasn’t really paying much attention to. That was kind of a mistake. Just when I’m getting’ ready to bend down and pick up the doc I see a another guy runnin’ from behind us.

“Well, I didn’t like the way he was movin’ toward us, and I didn’t like the gun in his hand. He wasn’t firin’ at me, but you could tell he was comin’ for us. So I raised up and commenced to shootin’. After that, I didn’t have to worry ‘bout no crowd. Give ‘em credit, beggin’ retards or not, those folks is smart nough to move when they see bullets comin’. Wish I could say the same ‘bout the low down that was moving on doc and me. Caught him in the shoulder..spun him around…and put two in his back.

“Now the alcohol is wearin’ off and I’m startin’ to realize we ain’t bein’ robbed. I do a quick reload and start watchin’ the area ‘round us.”

Inara returned with some rapidity to the room, her hands burdened with bandages and an alcohol bottle.

“What did I miss?” She said breathlessly. Quickly opening the bottled alcohol, she expertly doused the bandage in alcohol while gesturing for Jayne to raise his shirt. Zoë meanwhile was synopsizing Jayne’s tale.

Zoë had reached the part when Jayne shot his second man when Inara dropped the bandage onto Jayne’s back.

“GORRAMIT WOMAN…..arrrrrrrrrrrrrgghghghgggggghhhhhh!” Jayne hollered and frantically tried to reach behind his back to remove the bandage. Tears, and his tiny circular hopping dance, were hindering him in this effort.

Finally, his tears slowed to a trickle and he was able to speak. “That do smart a little.” Jayne bent forward from the waist as though doing exercises. “Arrrgh…I mean to tell ya it smarts.”

Upon straightening, he found Mal’s eye. “Don’t we have no pain killers?”

Mal nodded. “Sure do. They’re called “forgettin’ your pain while tellin’ a story” capsules. Latest thing.”

Jayne rotated his shoulder, wincing.

“Another fella was comin’ from the direction of Serenity and it didn’t look healthy to stay. So I grabbed up the doc and hauled pi-gu back here. They hadn’t hit the Fed sirens when I got back here, but that was comin’ soon I’m thinkin’.” He paused. “On the plus side, I hit a bunch of side alleys on the way back. Had the one fella followin’ us, but he took off the other direction when I put a couple of rounds his way…so they don’t know about me headin’ to Serenity. And if anybody saw what happened, they can tell the Feds truthful like that it was self-defense.”

Inara rolled her eyes.

Jayne spoke to her, “Hey, I’m as surprised as you are. It’s a new experience for me too. Kinda embarrassin’. I got a reputation.” Inara again rolled her eyes at the thought of his reputation.

Mal was frowning. “So the first guy who tried to kill you…did you recognize him?”

“Nah, Mal.” Jayne was shuffling his feet though.

Inara and Zoë both looked skeptically at Jayne. Something about the tale felt incomplete to Mal.

“Maybe he heard you and the doc arguin’ and thought you was robbin’ him or treatin’ the doc wrong in some fashion…could that be?”

Jayne held up both hands to ward off Mal’s question. “Hey, I ain’t sayin’ that’s impossible Mal, but we was several feet away from that guy and it was powerful noisy on that street…even before I started poppin’ off rounds. There’s street vendors and gibberin’ retard beggars and vehicles drivin’ on that road. I ain’t saying it’s impossible he heard us….” His voice trailed off.

Mal frowned in concentration. No, Jayne wasn’t saying that, but he clearly believed the attack was something more than a random flare up, or a mistaken Samaritan come to help the doc. On matters of personal violence, Mal had to admit that Jayne’s category of experience outweighed his own. Sure, Mal had killed men in lots of different ways. But most of them were in wartime and all of them had represented some sort of threat. He’d never killed solely for profit. Jayne had. And probably would again. And probably would torture the person before that. Jayne could smell violent trouble, like a dog that knew when another dog was getting ready to fight. If he thought the attack was something other than random, Mal would bow to that experience.

“Inara…Zoë…can you two go check on Simon?” Mal wanted to talk a little more with Jayne, and Mal felt like the presence of the others was holding Jayne back. Zoë he could see understood this. He’d talk to Jayne some more, but first things first….

Mal toggled the comm. for the bridge. “Set course for Ita Moon, River. Run a zigzag over the next two systems…never mind about the fuel loss….although the most economic trim wouldn’t be a necessarily bad thing. And just for my benefit…every once in awhile turn the ship around to make sure we ain’t got no hounds on our tail.”

River’s voice floated back to him. “You can count on that”, she said.

Red Run 2: Talkin’

(Warning: Serenity Movie Spoilers) Serenity, Firefly, and any mention of the ‘Verse associated with them is entirely the property of the storytelling genius Joss Whedon, and also the property of the evil Fox Corporation. This fanfic is not for reproduction nor for sale. It is freely distributed as an effort of appreciation.

Inara and Zoë had left the loading bay to go check on Simon by this time. Inara clearly wanted to stay and ask a few questions. That could wait for the future though.

One of the lights a few feet down the bay began to flicker before burning out. That part of the loading bay fell into relative darkness. The pool of light remaining highlighted the two men in a circle of light…like a dogfight pit or the spotlight in an arena.

Mal didn’t beat around the bush. “Right now, Jayne, you got River Tam on your side. But I’m getting’ creepy crawly feelings that you ain’t told me everything. So okay…we’re alone here. Tell me the rest of it.”

Jayne glanced swiftly at Mal, and chuckled slightly. “You been takin’ mind readin’ lessons from her, Mal?” Jayne pointed toward the bridge. “I was gonna tell ya. Just didn’t wanna say anything in front of anybody else.”

“Ain’t never stopped ya before Jayne…why you goin’ quivery lip on us now?” said Mal.

“Remember them folks back in Canton?” Jayne looked up toward the ceiling as he spoke. “I should say that I do.” Mal replied. “Not so good Bossmen there, but a nice bunch of regular folk. Smelly…some would say. But pleasant enough in their ways and personality.” “Yeah…well….I bumped into one of them when I was at the bar.” Mal thought he now understood Jayne’s reluctance to speak. A man like Jayne didn’t need emotional baggage. Sympathy, empathy, kinship (beyond partnering with criminal associates)…anything of that ilk was liable to sneak up on a man with Jayne’s profession. Hit him during his DownTime. Make him doubt himself. Doubt his purpose. Doubt his direction in life. Men like Jayne either had to learn to shut off their feelings, or never have had them in the first place. You couldn’t do the things that Jayne Cobb had done, and feel guilt about those events. You had to cope. You had to not feel.

Now…that said…Mal knew Jayne could feel shame…and regret. It was the only reason Jayne Cobb still walked the ‘Verse, and wasn’t being remembered as “the man who fell out of the sky one day” on the world of Ariel.

As far as Mal knew though, there were only two events in the ‘Verse that ever had effected Jayne Cobb emotionally. His traitorous betrayal at Ariel being one…over which Jayne had expressed roundabout regret. The other was the death of a selfless young man in the city of Canton, on the world of HigginsMoon. A selfless young man who sacrificed himself so that Jayne Cobb could live.

Any reminder of this event was going to trouble, Jayne. Like for instance bumping into someone from that world.

Mal was doubtful. “You sure on that Jayne? Most of the folk in Canton was on Indentured Status. Aren’t gonna be very many of ‘em leaving until their service contracts run out. Those that can legally leave after their indenture runs are gonna find the cost of a ship too high for most of ‘em to afford travel. Like as not, they’ll be Higgins’ Workers until the day they die. Like you once said…they got the short stick.”

Jayne nodded. “Yeah…sometimes I think on what I might could do iffin’ I ever got a whole lot a money…” He trailed off….thankfully, from Mal’s point of view, because Mal wasn’t sure his mind could have withstood the shock of hearing Jayne commit to words the idea of a selfless action. Mal comforted his own sense of the ‘Verse by telling himself he probably misunderstood what Jayne had been about to say. “Yeah”, he told himself again, “I probably misunderstood.”

Jayne continued. “But it weren’t none of those folk, Mal. It was that merchant what met us in the Canton bar that day. The fancy dude in the good clothes. ”

“The guy who hired Kessler to smuggle his goods off Higgins ‘fore they chopped off his hands?”

“Same fella.”

“What did he want from you?”

Jayne shifted his weight. “Well Mal, at the time, I was thinking he didn’t want nothin’. He walked in, took a look around the place, and saw me sittin’ in a corner booth…you know, keepin’ my back to the wall and my eye on the doors and windows. He walked over to the table, reminded me who he was and thanked me for getting’ his goods to market. Said he was more than happy and allowed he’d buy me a drink if I wanted one. I told him that was fine by me. I weren’t about to turn down a free drink. He drank his drink. I drank the one he bought me, then he glanced at his watch and said he needed to leave for an appointment, and he took off. I kinda thought before he left that he might have been about to offer us another job, but he didn’t.

“That’s all?”

“That’s it.”

“What was that Fancy Dude’s name again? I don’t recollect him every tellin’ us back on HigginsMoon. And we got paid on the other end, not from him, so it weren’t never needed for us to know.”

Jayne frowned. “He didn’t mention it to me either Mal. Just acted surprised and said, ‘Mr. Cobb…how have you been, sir? I’d like to thank you for the fine job you fellows did for me back on Higgins Moon’. And offered the drink.”

“Anybody talk to him while he was at the bar?”

“No Mal. He walked in, saw me, had a drink, and left. That’s it.”

Mal pondered for a moment. “How long was all this before Simon walked by?”

“A good hour at least.” Mal consider the situation for moment. “When you left Stalin’s bar, you headed up Port Street headed back to the Landing Area?”

“Well...yeah Mal…that’s the quickest way you get back to where Serenity was berthed. After the gunplay, I took a different route. Cut over three streets and done a side-on approach. Held up and watched my back trail a couple of times to make sure we wasn’t followed. Had the one fella behind me…probably some local followin’ me after he seen me shoot them fellas in the street, but I sent a round past his ear and he headed back the other way. So I come on back.”

“Which way did Fancy Dude go when he left the bar?”

Jayne nodded his head…beginning to see Mal direction. Jayne’s voice lowered into a darker tone and he spoke slower. “Toward the port area. Toward where them fellas tried to jump us.”

Mal nodded his head. “I think you was fingered. Wouldn’t a been too hard to know Serenity was landing in port, but when everybody left the ship, they all scattered three different directions. You and doc headed down Port Street one way then split up. Zoë and Kaylee headed off the other way up Port Street toward the clothes and supermarkets. If there wasn’t too many people watching, they might have gotten confused about who to follow. Lost their target. Some of ‘em would have never seen you in the first place. Didn’t know your face. ”

Jayne cursed under his breath. “I shoulda busted the Dude’s head and stole his wallet when we was in that bar.”

Mal patted Jayne’s shoulder consolingly. “Well…you couldn’t a known.”

“If he was fingerin’ me, who do you think it was for? I know Magistrate Higgins weren’t happy with us comin’ to his moon, but really Mal, we didn’t do that much to him…not to him personally I mean. Not this last time.”

“I gotta figure on it some more Jayne. Could be they wasn’t lookin’ for you. You weren’t the only one there. Could be Simon was the target.”

“Alliance?”

“That would be a fella’s first thought….right enough…but why try to slice on him, and why only send a couple of men to do it? If the Alliance wanted to catch him, we’d have seen 200 Federals in the street, and ten ships in orbit when we tried to leave. And they wouldn’t have tried to kill him until they knew where River was at. Unless something has changed in their ideas about catching him.” Mal felt nothing but confusion. “You’re sure this was a deliberate kill attempt? Not some low filcher that was going for your wallet?”

Jayne dropped his head and looked at his feet. “I was a little drunk when I left the bar Mal, but I wasn’t that drunk. And I sobered up quick when we was attacked. I’d still say he was going for us.”

Mal pushed himself away from the crate he’d been leaning on and straightened his shirt. “Well, you keep thinkin’ on it. Iffin’ you remember anything else, let me know pretty quick, but right now I’m goin’ up to the bridge and check on our route. Talk at River for a few. See if she’s got some Knowin’ on these things goin’ on with us.”

Jayne muttered into his shirt. He didn’t mean for it to carry but Mal heard him. “I wouldn’t be holdin’ my breath.”

Mal pretended not to have heard. “What say there Jayne?”

Jayne met Mal’s eye, and smoothly lied. “I was sayin’ that maybe I’d do some reps. You know…on the weights. Work through the pain, you know?”

Mal nodded. “Good idea.” He turned and headed for the bridge stairs. Jayne walked over to his weight area.

Mal paused as he began to climb cargo bay stairs. One last comment still needed to be said, sort of by way of apology for leaving Jayne to have to fend for himself…and for momentarily doubting his loyalty. “You know Jayne, I figured bein’ this far out from the Alliance that we wasn’t gonna see no trouble.”

Jayne threw a soiled towel over his neck and let it drape down his chest. “Shooooot.” He said, drawing out the syllable. “Weren’t no trouble as I seen it Mal. Some cobblers thought they’d have a go. Didn’t work for ‘em and they had to put their money down on “purchasin’ the agricultural complex”* just a might sooner than they planned on. ‘Sides. I been needed to kill some folk lately. I been getting’ rusty.”

With that he turned around and began pumping weights.

The last sound Mal heard, as he climbed the steps, was the rhythmic clank of metal lightly touching metal, and the steady sound of breathing.

River had her back turned to Mal when he entered the flight deck. Her hands completed a series of rapid motions just as Mal dropped himself into the co-pilot’s seat.

He gestured a weak hand toward the console. “Are we shiny?”

“Luminescent,” she responded. She frowned at him. “You’re tired.”

He agreed with her. “It’s been a long day, and we’re into the nighttime now. But I wanted to talk with you, then maybe talk with Simon. I’ve an obligation to try to figure out what’s goin’ on. My own tiredness can wait a while. Though I suppose it would go faster if you just read my mind.”

She looked out the view port. “I still like to hear you say what your thinking. And I do get things wrong sometimes. Today I had no idea Simon was in danger until he returned to the ship.”

Looking toward the young lady, he replied out of the deepest center of his being, “And that’s a comfort to us mere Mortals, I can tell ya. Some of what you can do ain’t exactly the sort of thing that makes people feel comfortable. And I ain’t talking about the graceful way of killin’ that you got…worrisome as that may be. But you worry folk about what you might know about ‘em, and how you might tell others, and that you might be judgin’ them in some ways. You seem to know so blessed much about people sometimes. It’s good to see you flawed a bit.”

After this momentary tirade of verbiage, River stopped gazing out the viewport and looked at him with an open mouthed expression of shock. Mal began to wonder just how he was about to die.

“Well I can tell you honestly enough Mr. Captain Reynolds, sir, that I didn’t see THAT coming.” She narrowed her focus on him, and Mal was pretty sure he saw anger in her eyes while she was leafing through his mind’s files. “You were speaking stream of consciousness right then. Right out of your instincts. No filters on your thoughts.” She made it sound like this was a threat. She suddenly cursed. “Worse thing about it is that my own internal cognitive process agrees that you’ve made a valid assessment.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “Of course, I’m forced to believe you’re evil now.”

Mal was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry. It’s like you said. I’m tired. I didn’t mean to throw no streams on ya….”

In one of her mercurial changes of mood that she was known for, River suddenly grinned, then laughed. She reached out and slapped his hand…lightly. “Nevermind.” she said, “I’m too sensitive about those kind of things.”

She stopped grinning and turned serious. “ I….I know I’m different, Captain” she stammered, “and I know I’m not completely all right yet. I…I’m trying.” she said, with a look that begged him to understand without explanation.

Mal did…sort of. The Trying Thing was something he knew all too well. He’d done his fair share of that since the Battle of Serenity Valley. The only current regret Mal had though was that her brother Simon wasn’t here to listen. She’d expressed a notion that Mal had suspected his ownself for awhile. Mal mentally moved the appointed discussion with Simon Tam regarding his sister’s treatments from “soon” to “as soon as possible”.

Mal looked at River. “Not knowing that Simon was hurt changes things. I’d supposed before now that you could tell me everything that’s going on….what with that fortune telling gift of yours.” Mal wasn’t exactly asking a question. He wasn’t exactly sure he wanted to know…if there was any Knowin’ to be had.

River gazed toward the Black, and stay silent. So long silent in fact that Mal suspected she was in one of her fugue states and wasn’t going to answer. She surprised him when she said, “No. It doesn’t work like that. Not always. Sometimes I just know things. Things I don’t know how I know. Sometimes I can force it to happen. If I’m standing in the room with someone, and I really want to know everything about them…it will suddenly happen. A whoosh in my mind…and I see them. I feel their emotions. I hear what they’re thinking. It’s like they become two people.

She pulled her legs into the pilots chair and hugged them. “And at the same time it’s like I become half a person. There are two of us in the same body…and I’m not the whole thing anymore. Even after I stop, their presence lingers in my mind. I can’t turn it off, or make it go away and it’s scary. Especially when the person isn’t a nice person.”

Mal, realizing this was a rare insight into the inner being of River Tam, and that she was incredibly vulnerable at that point, suddenly felt he needed to lighten the mood much as they had in the Brigade…which basically consisted of watching a fellow trip over his on feet and everyone shouting, “Grace” or “Hey clumsy.” or “You can walk mine detail next time.”. It was with this mocking comradery in mind that he then told her, “Then I’m surprised you ever look at Jayne.”

River turned, chocked her head and put on a girlish sneer of annoyance, much as Mal had sometime seen her look at her brother when he acted dumb. “Hardy har har.” She rewarded Mal with a slight smile though.

Mal spoke again. “I’ll not be askin’ you to do anything you can’t do. Takin’ over Wash’s place as pilot after his passin’ has done nothing but good for us. Your occasional bouts of craziness withstanding,” he added. “I’d not ask you to do more than you can do. And I won’t be asking you to put your…you know…”

“Sanity?”

“That’s a good word for it. Anyway, I wouldn’t be asking you to put that at risk. If takin’ on anything extra is gonna task you—“

She sighed. “If you only knew. I feel like I’ve gotten some better---“

“There’s most of us-- ‘cepting Jayne--that would be agreein’ with that. Again with the moments of craziness excused.” He shut up to let her think.

She continued staring into the Black. Eventually, she spoke. “When I know something about what’s going on, Captain, I’ll tell you. I’ve always been good about telling you. Sometimes though, the problem is that I know too much, and can’t get the words around how big it all is. Other times, I don’t know what it is I’m seeing, or feeling and I can’t describe it. And sometimes the knowledge isn’t there and I just don’t know. And sometimes…I’m just crazy.” She pointed at the desk. “But at least I don’t play with plastisized replicas of Cretaceous mega fauna. Talk about crazy….” She raised her brows in emphasis.

“You do know what Jayne and I were talking about down below, don’t you?” he asked.

“Oh yeah”, she quickly agreed….and with a touch of smugness.

Mal chuckled. “You are the gorramdest thing sometimes.”

“Most times. Ask Simon, he’ll tell you I was a real brat before I went” her eyes widened in momentary panic, and Mal thought their conversation might have delved too far into bad territory, but he saw her pull back. “To….you know…THAT place.”

Mal changed the topic. “Jayne didn’t lie to me, did he? You’d know that if he did, wouldn’t you?”

“No, he didn’t lie. He saved Simon. He doesn’t know why he did…why he didn’t just run away and leave him. He doesn’t know a lot of the reasons why he’s done some things lately, or why he’s feeling some of the things he is. He doesn’t even have names for most of those feelings.” She paused. “He misses Shepard.” Much quieter. “So do I.”

Mal nodded. “I reckon that’s true for anybody who ever met Book. ”

She looked at Mal. “He thought Jayne might have a chance at priesthood.”

Mal fell out of the co-pilot’s seat laughing.

She again favored him with a girlish sneer.

Mal wiped the tears from his eyes, stood up and bowed to her. “I gotta thank you. That is the best laugh I’ve had in ages. You should do stand up comedy. Run the Border circuit.”

She deepened her sneer. “I wasn’t joking, Captain. And you’re being an idiot.” She swung back around to stare out into the Black, caught in a bit of teenager-ish pique. “Don’t believe me then.”

Mal, realizing her seriousness, stopped laughing. “Jayne? Jayne Cobb?! You’re talking about Jayne Cobb?!”

She glanced away from him…not speaking to him for the moment.

Mal wasn’t to be put off. “Do you mean to sit there and tell me that Shepard Book thought that Jayne Cobb: murderer, cut throat, assassin, thief, robber,” Mal lost his train of thought for a moment and then found it with a vengeance. “Backstabbing TRAITOR! THAT Jayne Cobb…was Shepard material?”

Like many, River possessed one universal constant that all females of her age possess. The desire to gossip. She swung back around and began talking. “ You left out arsonist, and grave robber.”

“Grave robber--?”

“But only that one time. Anyway, it was that day I picked up the Arid Hawk .44 caliber that Jayne had dropped in the loading bay—“

Mal muttered out loud. “I knew that shang do wan had left that out—“

“—of course it looked like a tree branch to me and when I picked it up it changed into a gun. But before that, I had walked through the kitchen and heard Shepard and Jayne talking. That’s when I realized…with this sort of flash I get…that Shepard had hopes of Jayne joining their order sometime in the future. Maybe sometime in the next 20 years or so. After Jayne got some more…..seasoning….and got tired of killing and robbing people.”

Mal’s eyes felt like they were going to pop out of his head. “Awhile ago, Jayne was talking about the people in Canton—“

River finished his thought. “He’d help ‘em all if he could, Captain.” She got a faraway look in her eye. “Someday, he will.”

“How’s he gonna do that?”

River shook her head as though confused. “Do what?”

“Help them.”

“Help who?”

Mal realized that whatever thought she’d had about Jayne’s future was gone. He ran his fingers through his hair. “This is too much for one day.”

River nodded. “I get that a lot.”

Mal pointed at the control panel. “If you want, you can set the autopilot and grab some sleep. We still got aways to go and I can come back and spell you for a couple of hours. I’m going down to---oh forget it, you know where I’m goin’…but I’ll be back in another hour.”

He turned to walk out, took two steps before she spoke again.

“Just be grateful I didn’t tell you about SAINT Jayne.”

Mal looked over his shoulder. River sat grinning at him like the proverbial maniac that she was before bouncing in her chair and flouncing her head back to look out the viewport.

Staring at the back of her head, Mal was briefly tempted to ask. He opened his mouth to give utterance. Then he thought better of it. Raising his arms he made a shooing motion toward River.

Her laughter tinkled on the air behind him. To his eternal surprise, he wasn’t emotionally disturbed by it.

*”purchasing the agricultural complex”—bought the farm.

Red Run 3: Figurin’ Mal’s slow pace down to the infirmary could have been blamed on fatigue, which was truthfully beginning to have it’s way with Mal, but that wasn’t the reason he was walking slowly. Walking slow gave him time to think on things.

One thing Jayne had said bothered him. The fancy man from Higgins World had always struck Mal as being an elite type. That’s why he’d hired a middleman to smuggle his load for him back on Higgins World. He wasn’t the hands-on gofer type himself, and had been mighty worried about the Canton Prods on the one occasion that he’d been forced to be more directly involved. But if Mal’s suspicion was correct, Fancy had acted in exactly that capacity when he fingered Jayne…and by extension, Simon.

Of course he’d gotten a good look at Simon when they were in Canton, and Fancy might be figuring on making some reward money from the Alliance if he’d finally figured out Simon’s true identity. But that notion didn’t sit well with Mal either. People out in the border regions knew that calling Alliance attention to yourself was often worse than any reward ever could be. Compounding the error of attracting a giant like the Alliance was to then be forced to admit that you’d met the fugitive Tams while hiring a ship to smuggle goods past Alliance tax collectors and customs agents. Not the sort of attention you wanted to draw to yourself. Probably even worse than having Canton Prods after you.

Maybe that was why the other men had been there to kill Jayne. They’d be the front men to turn in the fugitives Tams and collect the reward, and then later share it with Fancy. Mal scoffed at his own idea. Sharing rewards sounded fine in vid-novels, but in the real world people didn’t like to trust their fortunes to partners. Not without a lot of history that supported trust. Assassins were many things, but trustable wasn’t one of them. He oughta know. He had Jayne.

Mal decided to give up on his meaningless wonderings for the moment. Information was still too scarce to paint the whole picture.

The infirmary was empty and Mal began to suspect that everyone had done the sensible thing and gone to bed. When he climbed back up to the kitchen though, he saw Inara, Zoë, and Simon all sitting around. Kaylee wasn’t in evidence, but that wasn’t too unusual. Checking the engines before she went to sleep was something of a ritual with Kaylee, and that was probably where she had gone.

Zoë said nothing to Mal when he walked in but acknowledged his presence with a nod while she sipped an aromatic tea. Inara softly intoned a “Mal” as he pulled a chair away from the table to sit. Simon greeted him the more effusively with a formal “Captain. Good evening.” And a slight bow. Wincing a bit from the motion, and touching his now bandaged head, Simon begun to rub that spot of his injury.

Mal sat down, and spoke mostly for Inara and Zoë’s benefit. “I’ve just talked with both Jayne and River. Neither one of ‘em are able to give me much more than what we already knew. Although I will say that my conversation with River was informative…and frightening…but not in ways that regard any danger to the crew or to Serenity. Seems to me that River has….as of late….been gettin’ better in her mind. I found myself actually enjoying our conversation.”

Inara interjected, “The frightening, yet informative, conversation?”

Mal, reflecting on the disturbing revelations about Jayne, leaned forward in his chair, “Well…when I said frightenin’ I didn’t mean—“ Zoë interrupted him. “This is the same River who put creamed corn in her hair the last time we served it?”

Mal looked from Inara to Zoë, “I never said that she was completely okay. I just said that….I’m thinkin’…that she’s gotten somewhat better.” Mal looked at Simon. “You are welcome to back me up at any moment doc.”

Simon smiled slightly and looked toward Zoë and Inara. “In spite of the adverse conditions that’ve happened to us within the last few months, I believe Captain Reynolds is correct in stating that River has made substantial improvements. I’m confident that with the proper drug therapy we may begin to see a total recovery of normal human responses.”

Not exactly the endorsement that Mal was looking for, but it would have to do. The issue of drug therapy was still going to need to be addressed, but it was too public a forum right now for Mal to speak his mind to the doc.

Inara touched Simon’s arm with happiness. “I’m glad to hear that doctor. River is a likeable and cherished individual. Many is the time that she’s delighted me with her sense of wonder and her perspective on the Universe.”

Zoë spoke after sipping her tea. “I’ll just be glad for the extra rations of corn once she gets better.” Zoë’s gruff manner disguised her subdued affection for River. Mal would never tell Zoë but Zoë needed fixin’ herself, and, like River, she needed time to reflect and understand. River’s demon was mental chaos. Zoë’s demon was emotional grief.

The feeling of disquiet about his crew started to grow again in Mal. Too many people in the crew were broken…or near enough to it. He’d seen how that got people killed during the war, and he wasn’t lookin’ forward to ever seeing it again. They all needed time away…and not just a few weeks.

“As much as we’re all glad to see her improvin’, she’s been the first to tell me that she ain’t all together. And there will be times when she will flat out be crazy. What she isn’t able to do at the moment is tell us what is goin’ on with this current business. She’s no more a clue of that than any of us.”

Addressing Simon, mal continued. “So I’m back to you doctor. You were attacked by those fellas along with Jayne and you got a good look at him. Jayne has added a few points to the tale that I’ll let everyone in on as we talk, but I’d like to hear your words on it first.” Mal suddenly remembered something. “Did you ever find any of that brain medicine for River?”

Simon sighed. “No. That was most disappointing. The doctor that I’d heard about was claiming to have found a plant extract that increased inter synaptic pathway formation by encouraging regenerative neuronic cell growth, but without causing a consequent memory loss from new cell formation.”

Seeing the blank looks of his crewmates, Simon tried again with “Doctor to Captain” speech. “He claimed that he could regrow parts of the brain without having memories effected. I’d been told that his office was near the Postal Pickup station, and it was…I suppose you’d say.”

“Why do you describe it like that, Simon?” Inara asked.

“It didn’t look like a doctor’s office to me. It was the dinginess of the place, I suppose. I later found out why, but at the time, the only thing I knew was that the place didn’t look like a doctors’ office. I know that the border worlds play fast and loose with appearances, and that you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but….still…I just had the hardest time believing that a doctor would let his office come to such a state. Wooden porch that hadn’t been swept. A rough cement block building with no windows. A sign hanging from the wall that said, “Doctor Morris” but only one side of the sign was level. The other side of the sign had broken loose and was sagging half way down the wall. Not confidence building in me, I can tell you.”

Mal spoke a bit more harshly than he intended. “You’ve seen worse now, doctor. Planets what ain’t got no doctor. Places that will steal any doctor what comes their way.”

“Yes. From my own experience, I know. And I shouldn’t let appearance guide me so much, but in this case it looks like I was correct to be cynical.” Simon got up from his chair and began pacing around the kitchen table, delivering his story at a faster speed. “I buzzed the door chime from the street and was able to talk my way into a quick appointment. The door was locked, which seemed unusual to me. Doctors everywhere will at least LOOK at a patient, even if they can’t cure them. Better to have them wait 3 hours in an office than to have them wander off to another doctor’s office. It’s just good for business. And I had the most eerie sensation that I was being studied while standing there. “As I say, I used the intercom to wrangle an appointment. The door was opened, and a large smiling man in a doctor’s coat gestured me to come inside. I quickly stepped in and took a look around before addressing my host.

“What surprised me when I went in was how vacant his office looked. For a doctor to work, he needs staff. Nurses, secretaries, all the others who handle the day-to-day aspects. He had no one except a somewhat threatening looking man sitting on a couch. That was my second clue that something wasn’t right. I ignored that warning though. “I introduced myself as Daniel Keys, a first year med student traveling out from Ariel to see a bit of the galaxy before returning to school. I told Dr. Morris that I’d heard about a possible plant extract that he’d been working with, and that I’d love to talk with him about it. “His manner was jovial enough when I mentioned the plant extract, but he didn’t seem interested in showing it to me. Which really wasn’t overly surprising. Discovering a new medicine can cause jealousy, and even theft of copyright from unscrupulous competing physicians. “He informed me--somewhat brusquely--that he wouldn’t consider displaying his extract to any first year med student. He reserved his treatments only for people in need, and wasn’t interested in sharing his discovery with the rest of the galaxy. He then told me that unless I knew someone in need, he was done with me. “He was in the process of leading me to the door by the elbow when I managed to break free, and tell him that I’d come on somewhat false pretenses. That I had a patient who could possibly benefit from his treatment, and to please hear me out. “I told him that I had a sister who was suffering from some psychological problems that I suspected was possibly related to brain trauma. I apologized for not telling him that when I walked in. “He was remarkably sanguine about my deception, and almost immediately changed his attitude about my presence. He told me that it was all right that I’d misled him a little. He asked me some questions that seemed related to her condition. Her age. Her general health. Her level of social interaction. And other questions. “Did she take care of her self? Could she perform simple tasks? What was her general appearance?” Seemingly innocuous questions related to her health, but something about the way he asked them made me uncomfortable. After quite a long time of this, I told him that I had another appointment. I was just ready to get out of there. “He asked about the ship I was visiting on….asking me how much later in the evening it would be before I got back. I didn’t want him to know about Serenity, so I told him that I wasn’t going back to my ship. That I was going to go back to a local hotel room that we had secured for the day”.

Mal and Zoë shared a look for a moment. Simon noticed their glances between themselves. “That meant something to you. What did that mean?”

Mal shook his head. “Gone on with your story doctor. We’ll bring our opinion to the table as it’s needed.”

Simon rotated his head slowly. His frustration with Mal’s refusal to explain was clear. He began to speak again. “So I begged out of his presence. That was no easy task I can assure you. He was most insistent that he visit me later, and to allow him to take my sister and I out to eat. If I’d give him the name of the hotel, he’d come by later, he told me, and take us out as a sign of hospitality. I hadn’t told him either River’s name or my real name, and I certainly didn’t have a hotel that I could have him call, so I couldn’t do that. Oddly enough, if it hadn’t been for his near frenzied insistence, I might have taken his offer as a sign that he was just a down on his luck doctor who needed patients with money badly. However, he seemed too interested at this point.

“Finally, I saw a chance to leave when two other customers came into his office. He went to speak to these men and I just broke away and walked out the door. When I turned around, I saw him watching me, but he appeared to get nervous standing on the porch and went back inside.

About a block down the street, I found out why he was nervous. A young woman approached me. She said, ’Here! I just saw you come out of Dr. Morris’ office. You’re new in town.’

“Her appearance and mannerisms reminded me of the ladies at the “Heart of Gold.” Simon blushed, and everyone noticed it. “I believe that she might have been in the same profession. Since I felt I needed a cover story, I told her that I might be in town for a day or so Offship, and that I’d felt the need of a doctor.

‘You don’t want that one, dearie. He’s a dead man walkin’. Leastways around here.’

That caught my attention enough that I paused in the street and asked her her meaning.

‘He’s a slaver, dearie. Folks around here found out why their sons and daughters have come to his care, and then get kidnapped a day, or a week, or a month later. He was checkin’ over their vital signs. Pickin’ out the best of the lot. Then Wavin’ up his slaver pals to come in and take the kids. Nobody knew what was going on at first. Kids just started disappearing. Sometimes the families would send their kids off to school, and they’d never come back. Or be workin’ in the fields or out in the mines. Othertimes, it was just like they’d vanished. For six months it’d been happenin’. Started about a month after Mad Morris came here. Only stopped now that we’ve found out.’

‘How did you---‘

‘Catch him? Well, sir…you might could blame one of my “business associates” on that. Dr. Morris has a bit of a thing he likes to do when he’s…enjoying himself. He likes a good whipping, does our Doctor. He got enamored with a friend of mine named Daphane. Wanted to take her away from all this. She told him that he wasn’t making enough coin to leave himself…let ‘lone take her. He told her he had thousands of credits stashed away. Wouldn’t tell her how he come by it. But she happened to be there the day he got a Wave. One of his business partners, I suppose. He started talking about how Morris’ cut was too much and that takin’ a 10% cut off every child he done had kidnapped was startin’ to get to expensive for the other slavers. ‘Course he kicked poor ole Daphane out the door fast, but not before she o’heard him speakin’ on the comm. It was her spread the word to the rest of us.” She paused for a moment. She looked as though she was about to cry. “Those kiddies…snatched out of their homes, sent off to ‘Verse knows where. Weren’t right. Better than 40 young uns gone. Each of ‘em fetchin’ a 20,000 credit price on their little heads. Sold as 10 year old wives or “husbands”. Oh yeah…old Mad was makin’ a pretty penny. He’ll see how he spends it where he’s going.’

Picturing his younger sister in the role of kidnapped sex slave, Simon looked toward the deck of Serenity, momentarily too shaken to go on.

Mal muttered to himself but loud enough to be heard. “I’m sure whereever it is, it’ll be someplace…..Special.”

Simon began pacing as he continued. “So I told her that I wouldn’t be going back to that place. She told me that was why she’d come to speak with me. ‘Weren’t sure ifin’ you wasn’t one of those slavers yourself…for about 5 seconds. (Rauchous laughter from her.) But once I seen yer face and them manners of ya…that’s when I knew you was the genuine article. You’se been raised classy…plain enough for anyone to see. Not like these scum been stealin’ the kids.’

‘No, dearie. Don’t come back here again. Mad Morris probably won’t be around much longer. No need of you to get caught in the crossfire. There’s townsfolk watching that place…and him. He’ll make a mistake and step away from his office, and when he does, there’ll be people that take him. We’d a done for ‘im already ceptin’ he’s got some protection come in within the last week. ‘Bout the same time as we begun to suspect him. Some serious heavy hitters. We’re having to wait for our right time to lay him low. But we’ll get him…soon enough.’

“What about the sheriff or other law enforcement, I asked her.”

She gave me what I can only explain as a sad smile, and described their legal predicament. ‘Our law done left for a couple of weeks…so they tell us. We had some Alliance Federals here, and a local sheriff and his patrol. Nobody is ‘spose to know but they’se been called back to a Core world. Some sort a problem with….’

“And at that moment she did a curious thing. She raised her hand to her forehead and touched the back of her wrist to it, palm facing me. I told her I didn’t understand the gesture.”

She whistled through her lips in exasperation. ‘Buddha save us. You don’t’s get out very often, does you?” She repeated her gesture. “This’s what you do when you’se about to faint. We’s started doin’ that ever since the whole…you know’ (lowering her voice) ‘Pax thing. Means a person whose too exhausted with Life. Like what them poor souls felt on Meeranda.’ Suddenly raising her voice again to normal levels. ‘It’s a sorta way of talkin’ about it without talkin’ bout it.’ She shook her head miserably…at the ‘Verse one would suppose. ‘Ruttin’ Alliance.” She spit on the ground.

“Neither one of us spoke for a moment. But I guess I’m somewhat obsessed…and short sighted,” Simon continued. “I wasn’t yet ready to abandon the medicine for River. Although I suspected that Dr. Morris was nothing but a fraud in regard to his cure, I had to confirm it for myself. I questioned the young lady about any possible medicines that the doctor might have handed out for mental illness.”

She gestured at the streets. Around us, many of the mentally effected children were begging in the streets. Most little better than retarded.

‘If that son do ghou knew how to fix children, he’d be rich in a month in this place. No, dearie, you’se been lied to. Nothing back there but a man of evil…who’s not much long for the Worlds.’

‘And as though her words were a starting bell, I heard some sort of commotion start back behind us near Dr. Morris’ office. I couldn’t see all the details, but it looked like some sort of fight outside.’

When she noticed that, she bid me good day and parted company. As she left, I noticed her pulling a handgun from her waistband. Discretion being the better part of….well…just being the better part….I hurriedly continued on up the street in order to avoid trouble with the locals.

Simon faced them. “I won’t pretend that I wasn’t disappointed. I’d invested a lot of thought into how a good neural regenerative could help the damaged portions of River’s brain to repair itself. Ever since we heard about it, I’d been picturing how effective it might be.

“Now that was all lost. There was nothing for me to do. So keeping to the same street, I headed back toward Serenity…until Jayne “arrested” me. I thought at first I’d let my concentration slip. No, that’s not right. Truthfully, I had let my concentration slip, so I reacted to Jayne’s mugging out of fear of capture, and I struck him a few times before realizing his identity.”

“Jayne wasn’t impressed with me though. He piled a couple of insults on me about my fighting ability, describing my skills as girlish…and I got somewhat mad, an after effect of having been frightened out of my wits a few moments before and having already experienced a disappointing day, I suppose. I threw a punch at him. I’m not proud of that. I’m also not too proud of the fact that he evaded it, and I fell in the street.”

“People were laughing--Jayne most of all--and I could hear some comments coming from around us about a fight in the street.”

“The next thing I knew, I saw a man suddenly running from behind us. He was headed for Jayne and I realized that he intended to attack him. He leaped forward, and I shouted. Somehow Jayne was able to twist away from a knife that the man suddenly seemed to be carrying. I have no idea how he did that. His reflexes were incredibly swift. The man missed Jayne”, (no one corrected Simon) “and he stopped near me and swung at me with his knife. It struck me on the side of the head. I had attempted to throw myself back…but I obviously didn’t make it. The next thing I knew, I woke up in the loading bay. We went to the infirmary, treated my wound and then came here for some tea.”

Simon voice took on an apologetic tone. “I can only state how sorry I am, Captain, that I threw a punch at Jayne. It seems fairly obvious that the man was coming to break up our fight. I know that keeping a low profile is more important than ever now, given our recent run-ins with the Alliance, and our status as fugitives. I regret that I let my better judgment get away from me. Zoë has told me that Jayne was forced to kill that man, and I can’t help thinking that he’d be alive right now if I hadn’t thoughtlessly started what others would have believed to be a serious fight. I can only defend myself by saying that the Core worlds don’t have near the level of bystander interference as I’ve found out here in the Border Worlds, and that I didn’t realize that a stranger would get as involved as he did. But that’s still an excuse, and I am to blame.”

Mal regarded the ceiling for a moment and muttered a few choice Chinese words. “Doctor. First off, let me be apologizin’ to you. I’m afraid that I’ve needlessly risked your life today by not sending off some protection to accompany you.”

Simon interrupted. “Thank you Captain, but your words are---“

Mal cut him off. “I wasn’t finished doctor. You were at risk in port today, and it weren’t no accident that you were attacked. And it weren’t no misperceived fight that caused that fellow to attack you. I think it was related to the mess you ran into at the doctors office.”

Simon rubbed his aching head. “Someone thought I was a slaver coming to meet with Dr. Morris?”

Mal stopped in the middle of his monologue and considered this for a moment. “I suppose that’s possible, and might be all there is. But I don’t believe so.”

Simon resumed his seat. “Before, while I was talking, it seemed as though you and Zoë figured out something. Can you tell me what it was?”

Mal glanced at Zoë and waved his arm in a “your show” gesture.

Zoë shifted her chair, casually readjusting the carbine on her hip to a more comfortable position. “When you were at the doctor’s office, you volunteered to Morris that you were staying in a hotel. You’d also given a fairly good description of River to him. I think they were planning on following you there and waylaying you later on and kidnapping River.”

“How so?”

“Tylertown is a good sized town…for a border world. But there can’t be more than 5 major hotels within walking distance of where you were at, and a few dollars in the right hands would quickly tell them who the new arrivals were, and their guest rooms. Fact is, many times a hotel will have the guest registry on a paper tablet that the new guests will also sign. If you look above your name, you can find who’s come in before you, and their room number. Once they knew the hotel, they could find River and kidnap her easily back to their ship. Devious, but even old hands in this business might have fallen for it…especially if the questions had come from a local healer.” Zoë looked at Simon sympathetically. “She was an Off World girl. None of the locals would have missed her. With you dead, she’d have been worth a pretty penny to border world sex slavers. With you out of the way, taking a somewhat dimwitted young girl would be easy. Her looks would have been a selling point on any World. ”

Mal spoke up. “I got a little more to add to that kidnapping theory after talking to Jayne. I don’t think the slavers were looking for just any girl. Seems Jayne ran into an old acquaintance of ours. A fellow from Higgins Moon.”

The others registered various expressions of surprise.

Mal went on. “Inara and Zoë never had the opportunity to meet him, but I’m sure Simon remembers the fancy dressed man who met us at the Canton bar. Seems he saw Jayne at Stalin’s and offered him a drink for past services rendered in delivering his cargo. I think he was fingerin’ Jayne to be followed…possibly by the man who tried to kill them.”

Mal continued. “Let’s look at the timing of things a little. Simon left from an office that is currently being watched by everyone and their highly upset brother. Simon was able to walk out of the area because the locals recognized him as having come Offship recently, was not carrying a weapon, and didn’t have the look of a slave trader. And because of a certain classy, effeminate manner.” Mal smiled at Simon to indicate he was joking….somewhat. “He wasn’t in danger of being followed because none of the people brought in to protect Morris, or Morris himself, was going to be able to follow Simon. They’d have to worry about having the backs of their own heads cut open by local townfolk while watching him. So someone who wasn’t hanging around Morris’ office had to watch Simon’s associates.”

Zoë straightened in her chair. “That don’t make no sense, sir. Unless you’re suggesting Simon and Jayne were being watched from the time they got here.”

Mal nodded. “I think they were. I think each and every one of you who left the ship today was followed when you left. I think that all Firefly class ships that come to Tylertown have been getting special attention for a little while now. Anyone leaving from a Firefly class ship in Tylertown was gonna be followed.” Mal hesitantly played his hold out card. “ I think that all of this was a plan to capture River.”

They all started talking at once.

Simon: “Given the situation, an attack on myself I can understand----“

Inara: “I hardly think that anyone could know that River would be---“

Zoë: “Her particular? No, sir. Slavers will take any female opportunity---“

Mal gestured for silence. “I know it sounds far fetched. But think about it for a moment. Simon hears about a miracle mind medicine while we’re in port on Fortunes Dame. A type of medicine that is almost tailor made to cure what ails River. The doc even said hisself how he was looking forward…almost dreamin’ about….how effective this medicine was gonna be for River. I believe that story was planted. Probably on 30 or 40 worlds in any direction, we’d hear the same story about the marvelous doctor on Paquin. How he’s got a miracle medicine that cures what ails. That medicine was the bait for the trap.

Simon shook his head. “No. That can’t be.” The quiver in his voice put lie to his denial.

“A trap?” asked Inara skeptically. “Pretty elaborate one, don’t you think?”

Mal bobbed his head again. “I do. And a gorram tricky one to boot.”

Zoë interrupted in semi-support of the Captain. “If that’s the case, sir, then why not capture or kill Simon at the doctors office? That was the baited area.”

Mal shook his head negatively. “Simon had already told Morris that River might be at another location. But you’re right Zoë, they could have gotten around that quick enough by just askin’ around. No, I’m thinkin’ they had to wait because they hadn’t heard anything from their boss, and didn’t know if they were to kill Simon or not. Maybe they’d been told to keep him there….without raisin’ Simon’s suspicions. And I’m further thinkin’ that the reason they hadn’t heard from their boss was because there wasn’t nobody left to come give Morris instructions.

Mal grinned as he warmed to his subject. “Think back to early in the day. Zoë, you and Kaylee left, and I suspect men followed you around all day today. Same for Simon and Jayne. Two would have gone with them…normally.”

“Was today not normal?” Simon intoned ironically. “ I was beaten up. Again.”

“No, ‘tweren’t. ‘Cause Kaylee came back with something interestin’ today. A catalyzer that she’d traded for. From another Firefly class vessel. There were two Fireflys in port today. They wouldn’t a necessarily known which vessel to look for except maybe that it was a Firefly class, so they probably covered both. I’m thinkin’ the men they had split up. Say there weren’t more than 6 men to watch the space port. Say three went to the other Firefly, and three stayed with Serenity. Then Kaylee and Zoë left. I bet two men followed them. It probably looked very suspicious to them when Kaylee and Zoë went to the other Firefly vessel, and they were after all looking for a young woman.” Mal held up a hand to forestall the doctor’s objection. “In my unproven theory they were looking for a young woman.”

Simon subsided and reflected a moment. “Go on,” he encouraged.

Mal resumed. “They might have suspected that the other Firefly was in league with Serenity somehow. They might have suspected that the other ship WAS Serenity, but running with a name change. They’d have wanted to leave some men to watch this other Firefly.

“When y’all left the ship, there weren’t enough to go around. Also I don’t think they could get a message to Morris, because I think that the various people following Simon, Jayne, and even you and Kaylee, were out of touch with each other today. Radiation counts around Tylertown can make comm. reception iffy at best. Hard to cut a signal there. But you still have to give Dr. Morris credit…he tried to keep Simon there in his office with all his questions. They needed to keep him there in order to give themselves time for instructions to arrive.

Zoë naturally asked the hard question. “How did they know instructions were coming? If they couldn’t call for help and report on the doctor’s presence?”

Mal wiggled one finger at her. “Cause one man DID know. The fellow who followed Jayne and the doc when they left. He knew were the doc was at…but he’d lost Jayne when the doc and Jayne separated. Morris and his bunch would have figured that Simon had been followed by a lot of men that they were in league with. They were waiting for a bunch of them to come busting in to help capture Simon. No wonder Simon thought that Morris was nervous. He was nervous cause nothing was going right. “Now outside, we got a guy who knows where Simon is at. But none of his friends knew where he was. None of the slavers inside Dr. Morris’ office could follow Simon when he left…cause they’d already been ID’d as slavers and stand a real good chance of bein’ killed by locals when they leave. So the only man who knew were Simon was located, and who could do anything about it, was the fella who’d followed him there. Sure…the doc Morris knew Simon was there, but he can’t radio anyone and he can’t leave to follow Simon. Trying to kidnap or kill Simon might have had angry locals on your head. And the fellow outside knew this.

“By now that fella realizes his problem. He was all by himself. And to do this kind of followin’ a target around, you really need more than two or three people. If Simon started looking for spies on his tail, he’d spot one man really quick. You need a team of men to surveil someone good and proper. If Simon left and went somewhere else other than Serenity, then our follower stood a good chance of losin’ Simon, or bein’ waylaid and killed by Simon.” Mal paused and address Simon specifically. “Him probably not bein’ aware of Jayne opinion about your fighting skills.”

Simon responded with sarcastic laugh and a pained smile.

“His only option is to go get more men to help him. He knows where they are. Probably somewhere nearby. He’ll just nip back real quick and talk to his boss and then come back to follow Simon.”

“So he does that, and it works. Only his boss realizes that they have a couple of potential problems. First off, they’ve left Jayne wandering around the town unwatched. And let’s all face it, the phrase “loose cannon” was written with Jayne in mind. If Jayne showed up at a prearranged meeting point with Simon at the wrong time, it could be problematic for them. They need to go find Jayne.

“So you think the Fancy dude from Canton was brought in to ID Jayne for the slavers?” Zoë asked.

“Little bit more than that I’m thinkin’. I’m thinkin’ he was the only one other than the fella who followed Simon and Jayne this morning who knew what Jayne looked like before today. I think he’s the ringleader of this whole thing.”

Zoë: “Not Morris?”

“Morris is a gofer. He set’s up children to be kidnapped, but he ain’t the leader. We know that from Simon’s palaver with that port doxy. We done some business for the fancy man back on Higgins Moon, but what do we really know about him? The more I think on it, the more I remember that Higgins Moon is mostly an indentured moon. Lots of slaves get mixed into the works as well. Could be Fancy is mixed up with these slavers, has since recognized Simon from back on Higgins Moon, and figured on catching River and Simon with a trap here on this world. He’s already got a slaver union set up. They just need to bait a trap with some loose talk in doctors offices around the ‘Verse.” Inara: “So he goes looking for Jayne?”

Mal shrugged. “I think he was the only one who could have. Other than the fellow following Simon, and that fella needed to get back to Morris’ office to follow Simon when he left cause he was the only one who’d seen Simon and Jayne today. I think Fancy probably went to 10 or 15 bars in the area until he found Jayne. He had one of his men watch Jayne after he left. Wherever Jayne went, he’d be followed. Probably with the idea of just keeping Jayne, and Simon…if Jayne linked back up with him…under observation. Meanwhile, Fancy headed back toward the port to gather up his other men for an attack on Jayne and Simon. Fancy had to know that there were 4 or 5 of his men who still didn’t have a clue that Simon and Jayne had left the ship. So he went to get them.”

Zoë nodded. Inara and Simon still looked skeptical.

“You said there were two problems. What was the second problem?” Inara asked Mal.

“Simon was in Dr. Morris’ office. They needed to know what all was going on there, but I think they were having real problems with communicating with him. Sure, they could send a WAVE, but by now they have got to know that the townsfolk are probably watching Dr. Morris something fierce. Too risky if the townspeople intercept the transmission and decide to object to another kidnapping.

“So they send in a couple of the men they had waiting with the boss to talk with Dr. Morris and see what our Good Dr. Tam has been saying. These are the two men Simon saw and mistook for being customers of the doc. They were probably there to give instructions, and maybe get a line on their real target….River. The fellow who has been following Simon goes with them, but waits outside to follow Simon when he leaves. The two who go in are only going in to talk with Morris and then report back to Fancy on what was said.”

“Why was what Simon said so important?” Inara asked.

Zoë stroked her eyelid absently and answered for Mal. “First off, they may have needed to be sure that it was actually Simon Tam. Up until now, the only person who knew, with evidence to back it up, was Morris. Depending on how Simon described his sister, he might have just been an honest citizen. They would probably want to know that before making a serious move. And also they’d want to know ‘cause it might have ruined their whole kidnap plan…or at least made ‘em change it. Simon was talking about him and his sister being at a hotel. If Serenity hadn’t been fully watched all day, then it might have been possible for River to have slipped out and gone to meet Simon. They weren’t sure that she wasn’t already in town. Maybe they were planning on raiding Serenity sometime tonight while we were in port. If River wasn’t here, then it wouldn’t have been worth their time. That’s information worth knowing as it would be so much easier to kidnap her from a hotel or off the street.” Zoë corrected herself. “Or least they might have thought so…if they’ve never seen River fight.”

“They ran into a little trouble when they left though. Remember how Simon described the fella inside Morris’ office as threatening looking. I’m bettin’ these two who went in weren’t no better. I spect townfolk killed them when they left. And I think that the fellow who’d been following Simon all day saw it happen.

“Which leaves him by himself again!” Zoë chuckled at the thought.

Mal continued where Zoë left off. “And now Jayne and Simon are no longer valuable to him. He was probably told to follow Simon to a safe place and then kill him…not realizin’ that Jayne was gonna see him on the street. In fact I imagine the man left at Stalin’s bar to follow Jayne probably had similar orders. Wait until Jayne left, and then kill him.

“Why kill them?” “Well, Simon might have River locked away in a hotel nearby, or she might be on the ship, or she might be wanderin’ around town, but once they know it’s Simon and River, then keeping Jayne and Simon alive now just means more people they’ll have to fight when they go to the hotel, or…failing that….have to attack Serenity. They’ve already lost a couple of men and the tail has to make a decision on what to do. He’s already confirmed as near as he can that the man he is following is Simon Tam and he is hopefully got River close by. He’s no longer an asset to them to confirm the location of their target, but a potential gun-firing obstacle when they go to retrieve it. Same deal for Jayne.

“So he follows Simon until Jayne attacks him in the street. This is a perfect time to kill both of them. He doesn’t even wait to look for his compatriot who has been assigned to Jayne. He goes for the kill. And gets shot for his trouble. Then the fella following Jayne decides he better make HIS move, and comes runnin’ up the street….smack into Jayne Round 2.

Zoë was nodding her head. “Makes sense.”

Inara and Simon both looked at her in confusion. “What makes sense?” Inara asked. “None of this makes sense!”

Zoë stirred her tea with her spoon, and sipped quietly.

“Hell, they might have even been able to get me and a couple of other crew off Serenity once the authorities came and told me that two of my crew were dead,” Mal added. “That would leave Serenity…or the non-existent hotel room….without me and whoever came with me. There’s another reason to kill Jayne and Simon. Easier for them if it makes more crew leave the ship…so they thought.”

Inara reached out and took Simon’s hand. “They weren’t counting on Dr. Tam being a wonderfully observant person and saving Jayne’s life.”

Mal continued. “Jayne told me that at least one man came running from the direction of Serenity. I think that the men guarding the other Firefly were recalled by the boss of this whole operation. One of their men was probably faster at running than the others. He’s the man who followed Jayne after the fight. He came running from the direction of Serenity because he’d gotten the word from his boss. Only now he’s alone, and Jayne isn’t coming back to Serenity the way he was suppose to. He’s cut over three streets and comin’ sideways toward us. Meanwhile, the other men who had been watchin’ Serenity all day have met with Fancy and he’s told them to go back and help kill Simon and Jayne. Jayne must have passed them on a parallel street while they were walking toward the doctor’s office. The guy followin’ Jayne knew he was all by himself. He probably figured Jayne was distracted---“

Jayne’s voice floated to them from the crew passage way. “I was.”

No telling how long Jayne had been eavesdropping. Jayne apparently didn’t feel the need to come join them at the kitchen table either because he never came down the stairs. Instead…perhaps…continuing to eavesdrop. After waiting for Jayne to join them, and not, Mal eventually continued.

“Then Jayne shot at him. The fellow probably figures he needs orders…not to mention getting away from Jayne shooting at him….and goes back to the boss. In fact, I’d bet most of the men working with Fancy were standing in the street while Jayne was working his way back here.

“So Jayne makes it back to Serenity. Jayne’s able to get aboard because the boss has called everyone back to make the hit on the doc and Jayne, so they’re still hanging around Port St. getting new orders from their boss. We take off. If we’d been any slower about it…by say ten or fifteen minutes….we might have found ourselves with 8 or 10 men trying to board us.” Mal semi-directed a comment toward the crew passageway, and the ethereal Jayne. “Remember last night when River took off runnin’ for the bridge? She was runnin’ ‘cause that VooMagic of hers was tellin’ her that those guys were comin’. Once we were in atmo, she calmed right down. Wasn’t no way they could get us, so she knew we was safe.”

A provisional “Hmmm” echoed along the crew passageway.

Inara looked speculatively at Mal. “Quite an incredible bit of deduction, Malcolm Reynolds. Glad you’re on our side.”

Jayne’s seemingly disembodied voice spoiled it all. “Yeah…if he’s right. Whose to say it weren’t just a robbery that went wrong, and Fancy was just one of them there coincidences.”

Mal didn’t have an answer. __________________________________________________________

Serenity’s bridge never failed to appeal to Mal. The vast openness of the view port seemed to promise a Universe of possibilities. Breathing in the Galaxy by eye would transport a man away near as fast as a Stellar Drive could do. The mind would wander and you could see---

Well, at the moment all you could see was that some wet behind her ears, barely-out-of-her-teens girl who’d set up a jacks game on the floor and was doing everything BUT piloting the ship.

“River…not to interrupt what I know has to be a downright fascinatin’ game of jacks…but did you forget that I asked you to pilot the ship for awhile until I come back? It weren’t that long ago….in a linear time stream reckoning of such things…that I asked you to keep our nose headed to Ita Moon and to keep a watch out for followers.” Then remembering who he was talking to, Mal reconsidered his point. “Unless…of course…you really DID forget everything I’d asked you.”

Without looking up from her game, River brightly said, “Oh no Captain. Remembered it. Done it. Worked it out. And then had time left over …precisely 32.6 minutes now…until we’ll need to make another course correction. At which time, I’ll cut our back trail…look for followers….and predict the next Grand lottery number on New Vegas.” She finally looked up at him. “Assuming I remember to do all that.” She pointed, without looking, at a data reader positioned next to the pilot’s chair. “But if I should happen to forget…I’ve typed out a list of instructions for course changes, times, and speeds so that someone else could fly us to Ita, and have us arriving in precisely 36.5 hours.” She pointed to the co-pilot’s chair. “Now please sit down. You’re making me nervous. I’m having unusually difficult times with the blue jacks. I don’t want to touch them for some reason, and it’s making the game hard.”

Mal positioned himself in the co-pilot’s chair. “How’s about leaving the game alone for a spell and attacking the blue jack problem after the next course change?”

River appeared to ponder this notion. “Agreeable.”

She smoothly rose from the floor and took the pilot’s chair.

The two of them gazed off toward the ‘Verse, not uncomfortable, but caught up in the reverie of the stars simultaneously.

“I may have figured out some of the reasonings behind the most recent events.”

She glanced at him. “That was quick. A couple of hours ago when you left, you had no clue.”

“You’ve some idea of what I’m going to say?”

She regarded him gravely. “ I COULD Captain…if you wanted me to, but I’m developing some….I guess my brother would call them “filters” on my, as you once described it, “scarifyin’ gorram mental powers”.

Mal shot the cuffs of his jacket. “I suppose we could revisit the conversation earlier where I said that a bit of blemish on your “gorram mental powers” weren’t necessarily a bad thing.” He then winked at River.

She pointed an accusing finger at him. “Only if you want to see an emotionally scarred girl with “gorram mental powers” proceed to kick your ass---“ she then pointed toward the neglected game on the floor “---in jacks.” She very slowly lowered her finger, like a battle cannon on a ship ponderously taking negative aim.

He glanced at the profusion of jacks on the floor. Absent a few green and red jacks, the majority were blue colored. He laughed aloud, “Considerin’ the color of the jacks left, I’d beat the teenage snot out of you.”

Biting her lip, River pretended to notice this odd arrangement of the game’s color scheme for the first time (Mal wasn’t fooled, he knew she remembered the color, position, and probably weight, of each jack) and further pretended to experience momentary fear. “No need to bring out the big guns Captain…I was just funnin’ ya.” She grinned manically. Then frowned. “And I’m not a teenager.”

Softly Mal intoned, “’Pologies…I’ll make an age note.” Mal then looked into the Black. “No way to be sure, but I think Simon was attacked deliberately by a group of men who are associated with a slaver guild. I think our trip to Paquin was part of a trap designed to catch you. I think Simon was expendable to them, and in fact, worse than that, maybe even a roadblock to their plans. That’s why I think he was targeted. I got a good idea of who one of the trap makers was, and I got no idea of why they was after you…except for maybe the reward from the Alliance. But I’ll be the first to admit that don’t make total sense.”

She shrugged. “Better than I’ve done today. Other than one premonition that I got just before you came back up here.”

“What’s that?”

“That they’ll try again. Soon.”

Red Run 4: Laughin’/Cryin’

Serenity, Firefly, and any mention of the ‘Verse associated with them is entirely the property of the storytelling genius Joss Whedon, and also the property of the evil, moronic Fox Corporation. This fanfic is not for reproduction nor for sale. It is freely distributed as an effort of appriciation.

(If you are only interested in the adventurous part of this story, then you may want to skip the next two chapters. They deal mostly with crew personal dynamics. The “real” story should begin once the crew reaches Ita Moon.)

21 hours out from Ita Moon

When Mal walked into mess area the next morning, he was greeted by the tantalizing smell of real Tylertown eggs and pork sausage. Kaylee, as was her custom, acted as morning cook. She was presently alone.

“Mornin’ Kaylee,” Mal said.

“Mornin’ Captain,” Kaylee replied. “Can you set up the dishes while I’m finishin’ here?”

Muttering about the role of Captain and crew, and the reversal of said roles, Mal gathered the plates and utensils, stacking them on the counter for ease of access. Kaylee just grinned at his good natured complaining.

Zoë strolled into the room. She halted with an expression of surprise on her face. “You puttin’ out the dishes, sir?”

Mal paused and looked at her fully. He waved a blunted butterknife in his hand. “I am. Is there some sort of problem with that?”

Zoë shook her head. “No, sir. It’s just…unfamiliar.”

Mal considered this for a moment. Zoë had seen him put out dishes a hundred times before, but what if this was her long unseen sense of banter coming back…? Best to build it up some.

Mal, in faux anger, “See! This is how you get treated when you let discipline slide. Not to mention doing a favorable turn for your crew. I voluntarily show up to help out young Kaywinnit with breakfastin’ and this is the treatment I get.” Gesturing with the butterknife, he managed to fling a spot of butter onto the floor. Both he and Zoë watched it fall. Without pause, and ignoring the butter, he pointed at the remaining condiments. “Why don’t you act as chef’s assistance for a minute while I assume the proper position at the head of the table…as befits a Captain of the vessel.”

Zoë was struggling hard not to grin. Calling on her military training, she executed a faultless attention stance and fired off the most asymmetrically perfect salute that Mal had ever seen…in either army.

“YES SIR CAPTAIN SIR!” she near-shouted. Moving in languorous malingering fashion, she made her way behind the counter.

Mal exited the area and moved to the table.

Kaylee nervously eyed the two crewmembers, unsure yet if she was seeing a true tiff between the Captain and Zoë, or a joking moment, so straight did the two old friends play out their self-assigned roles.

Mal, to up the anty, called out. “And Zoë…bring me some coffee.”

Kaylee glanced rapidly between Zoë and Mal. Seeing the set expression on Zoë’s face, Kaylee immediately adopted the role of diplomat, a role familiar to her from her life at home, and quickly wiped her hands on a towel. “I’ll get ya some coffee Captain. I’m ‘bout through---“

Overjoyed at the addition of the new Kaylee element into their theater, Mal reached into his drill sergeant days and curtly, but quietly, interrupted her. “Kaylee…let there be no mistake here…I asked Zoë to bring me a cup of coffee.”

Zoë stood slightly behind Kaylee with her hand raised to her mouth, damn near on the point of bursting out in laughter. Swiftly, she dropped her hand and assumed a stoic expression as Kaylee turned to her. Kaylee looked as though she were about to cry.

“The..the..coffee’s already made, “ she stammered. “I’ll fetch a cup out of---“

Zoë gestured to Kaylee. “No Kaylee. We don’t want to disobey orders any further than we’ve already done. I’ll get the coffee cup.”

Mal adopted a stern countenance as Zoë turned around and took two coffee cups from the cupboard. Moving at a pace that could only be described as glacial, Zoë poured the coffee, wiped the cups, poured sugar into one and then spent another minute locating a cream dispenser before finally moving at a speed that made her look like she was backing up as she moved toward the Captain.

“Here’s your coffee………sir.” She muttered, with the “sir” mutinously delayed.

The sausage smelled now like it was on the edge of burning as Kaylee watched the supposed “drama” unfolding. Zoë took her chair to the left of Mal.

Mal glanced at Kaylee then back at Zoë. A barely perceptible nod came from Zoë. Mal suddenly grinned, and began speaking. “Have you heard about the new fashion designs they’ve come out with on Persephone?” Mal waved his hand in the air effeminately as he seemingly remembered the non-existant dresses. “To die for.”

Zoë threw back her head and shook her hair. “Oh yes…that pink number that Rostel came up with…have you seen it?”

Mal widened his eyes as though excited and thrust his hands toward Zoë. She immediately took them in her own hands, and both put on the look of being near joyous at the thought of clothing. “Ooooooo…” both of them screamed together as they stamped their feet.

Mal and Zoë then stopped and looked at Kaylee.

Kaylee stood with an open mouthed expression of complete shock at this sudden turn of events.

Realization flooded across her face. She threw her kitchen towel across the distance, missing them. “You big phonys! I thought y’all was about to punch each other out.” She turned back to the stove. “OH…and look…you’ve made me burn the sausage.” (The sausages weren’t burnt.) She glanced at them again, relieved and shook her finger. “Not nice…not nice.”

Mal and Zoë glanced back at each other, grins plastered on firmly.

All of them stopped as they heard a sudden howl of “OH YEAH” from the crew quarters passageway. The thudding sound of feet quickly followed. As the thudding approached closer, words began to be heard.

“SAUSAGE!…OH YEAH….I SMELL SAUSAGE! Gonna get me some SAUSAGE!”

Leaping from the top of the crew stairs, Jayne Cobb majestically floated through the air---

And landed right on top of the pat of butter that Mal had dropped some minutes before.

“OH YEAH, SAUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHGGGGGGG”, Jayne’s voice morphed completely from joy to outraged confusion as his feet slipped from under him. Plummetting him to the floor in an ass-over-teakettle fashion. He still managed to land on his posterior though, and not his head.

No one spoke for a moment.

Jayne experiementally reached under himself. He winced as he touched his rear. “I think I broke my ass.”

Afterward, both Kaylee and Mal contended, over Zoë’s denials, that it was Zoë who broke first.

It was her laughter that caused Kaylee to let go.

And it was the sight of Jayne rubbing his butter smeared hand gingerly over his bruised rump that finally got Mal.

The sudden blare from the intercom stopped all of them. Mal waited apprehensively for an announcement from River.

Magnified to reach throughout the ship, River’s voice nevertheless seemed very intimate when she finally spoke. “I know this is going to sound strange…but did Jayne just bust his ass?”

Mal, Zoë, and Kaylee again burst into laughter.

River’s laughter joined them from the speaker system.

Jayne shook his fist toward the bridge. “Shut up crazy girl!” He again reached under himself. “This is my ASS we’re talkin’ about.”

Mal keyed the intercom, receiving a glare from Jayne. “That’s an affirmative River. Jayne has busted his ass. Mayhap you can get your brother up here---“

Simon’s form appeared in the doorway, half his face still covered in shaving cream.

The laughter renewed at his sudden comical appearance. Even Jayne was beginning to grin.

Mal gestured at Jayne. “Doctor…if you don’t mind.”

Simon shook his head smiling. “I’m not here as a doctor. I just came to see this.”

More laughter.

Inara appeared from her shuttle, her face a mask of stern disapproval.

“Was there an accident? I heard that Jayne was injured. Why are you all laughing?”

The others began to sober themselves.

Jayne pulled his legs under himself, and stood.

“Yeah there sure was. I fell down and busted my ass.”

Inara raised an image capture, and recorded Jayne’s picture. Rumpled and disheveled, Jayne was clearly not at his finest moment.

Inara smiled. “That’s great. Can you give us another one where you’re lying on your back with your feet in the air?”

Jayne initially appeared shocked at her lack of sympathy. He rallied. “No…gorramit…that’s YOUR job.”

Zoë was by now beating her fist into the table in mirth. Kaylee was doubled over on the floor laughing, and Simon was making hiccupping sounds. Inara stood smiling more broadly than anyone could ever remember. Even Jayne stood angry over his injury, but wryly amused at the conduct of his crewmates.

Mal wiped the tears from his eyes. “Oh, that’s great. That is so great.”

He reached to the intercom again. “Come on down River. Have a bite to eat.”

Mal and the others didn’t wait for River to appear before beginning their meal. Oftentimes, a direct command to River to appear would result in a long delay…or her complete non-appearance. Seemingly the only thing River did with complete competence was to fly Serenity. Kaylee said as much while they were heaping their plates full. Kaylee said it with such obvious affection that no one thought the comment judgmental, and indeed it wasn’t. Even Jayne acknowledged River’s piloting skill.

“She’s like one of them ‘idiot servants’ you hear about”, Jayne said as he chewed a huge chunk of biscuit. “Like them kids that do countin’ in their heads, and play the piano…but t’otherwise ain’t got a lick a sense.” He emphasized his assessment with an exaggerated nod.

Simon attempted to correct Jayne mildly. “The expression is ‘savant’, not ser---“

Jayne continued, drowning out Simon. “So I reckon she’s okay for flyin’ the ship, but that don’t mean I’d want her tryin’ to cook or nothin’. She’d like as not screw that up.”

Kaylee, something of a savant herself when it came to engines, spoke in a dreamily relaxed voice. “Yeah…I love River to death. She’s an okay pilot but I still wish Wash----“ Catching herself, Kaylee glanced swiftly at Zoë.

Everyone fell into instant silence.

Zoë sat looking at no one for a couple of moments before calmly setting her knife and fork down on the table and turning to look Kaylee directly in the eye.

Kaylee began at once. “I’m sorry Zoë. I didn’t---“

Zoë held the palm of her hand up to Kaylee. She spoke directly to the younger woman. “Kaylee, I don’t ever want you to apologize to me again when you talk to me about my man. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me when you remember him, and I don’t want you to hold your tongue when you think of him. We’ve danced around on eggshells too long now, and it’s time we didn’t.

“Yes, it hurts me to remember.” Zoë’s voice cracked as she said this. To hear the strain of emotion from a woman so powerful only served to emphasize the depth of her pain. Kaylee and Inara’s eyes both brimmed with tears at this. “But my man was one of the best pilots in the ‘Verse, and to know that he is remembered fondly by those of you who knew him is something that I never want to see stop.”

Inara rose from her chair and came to hug Zoë. A gesture that startled Zoë momentarily before she reciprocated. Kaylee joined them and all the females shared the hug together.

Mal dropped his eyes and sat silent.

Simon likewise kept his own council.

Jayne stopped eating.

But continued to eye his food at intervals.

Eventually the women disengaged from their hug and retook their seats, wiping their eyes with the breakfast napkins.

Jayne gratefully began cutting into his sausage with his Bowie knife. He tasted one of them. “Are these sausages burnt?” he asked.

“No,” said everyone.

Jayne shrugged. “Okay. They just taste funny.” He commenced to eating again.

River chose to make her appearance at this time. In true River fashion, she did this in a manner that caught everyone’s attention by dancing toward the stack of plates on the counter.

Grabbing up the top one, she spun around and ended up headed toward the food bowls. She dipped some eggs onto her plate, and then some sausages. She generously poured syrup over a biscuit and then danced back to the table.

Taking the seat directly across from Jayne, she quietly began shoveling food into her mouth. Jayne slowly and imperceptibly moved his Bowie knife as far away from River’s position as he could. He did it in such a shifty way that everyone—including River—was immediately aware of it.

Mal observed all of this, and then remembered something he had planned on doing before now. Now was as good a time as any to schedule a time to talk with Simon about River’s condition.

“Doctor---“

River exploded into movement. Giving no one a chance to stop her, River hurled her plate backwards over her head, spilling the entire contents of her plate across the room, and striking the cupboard with resounding force.

“My food won’t talk to me.” She pointed at the remains of her eggs. “The chicken says cluck cluck.” Her biscuit. “Wheat and bran say “Ah” as they grow.” Toward the remains of her sausage. “And the cat says Meow. But they aren’t saying anything.”

Simon leaped from his chair and ran around to River. “No, River, no. It’s all right.”, he stated habitually.

Jayne quickly wrapped his arms around his plate. “Well my food IS talkin’, and it’s sayin’ ‘stay the hell away’”. Then Jayne squinted at his sausage in suspicion. “Cat says ‘meow’?”

Kaylee looked green as she glanced at her sausage.

Zoë and Mal both felt their stomachs lurch a bit.

Inara regarded Jayne momentarily, reached down to retrieve a sausage from her plate, and then delicately began chewing it.

Jayne grinned wolfishly. He wasn’t about to be one upped by no woman. He sank his teeth into the meat and tried to stare Inara down while chewing. Looking at Jayne, she crossed her eyes and began chewing with her mouth open.

Jayne guffawed, accidentally spraying Simon.

“Do you mind? You cat munching….man-ape thing….you?” Simon said, as he wiped feline off his jacket.

Kaylee threw her napkin down and hurried to leave the room.

Mal glanced back at River and found her looking at him. Slowly, she winked her left eye.

Everyone turned back from watching Kaylee flee the room.

A suspicion arose in Mal. He addressed Zoë. “Did you see that?” Referencing River’s wink.

“I did indeed, sir. Guess Kaylee just don’t like the idea of eatin’ cat.” Zoë looked at her plate and pushed it away. “Can’t say I relish the idea myself.”

“No, that ain’t what I mean. Did you see River---“ Everyone now turned to look at Mal.

“Throw the plate?” Jayne asked. “I sure did Mal” He nodded across to River. “You’re in trouble.”

She stuck her tongue out at him.

Mal gestured angrily at River. “You and me are going to have a serious talk. I saw what you did.”

Noticing the sudden tension among the others in the room, Mal stopped talking.

Simon cleared his throat. “I know you’re upset Captain, but River has had these types of episodes before. I promise though we’ll look into cleaning up—“

Mal threw up his hands. “That ain’t what I’m upset about. I’m upset about her actin’ crazy when she ain’t.”

Simon, Zoë, Inara, and most especially Jayne were all staring at Mal. River had formed a butterfly by placing her two thumbs together, and was fluttering it around her head.

Inara broached the topic first. “Mal…we all hope for River to recover…someday.” Inara glanced significantly at Simon and River. “But we can’t expect her to get better all at once.”

Jayne nodded his head. “Yeah, Mal. Just cause she can fly don’t mean she knows what end is up, “ Jayne stated, illogically. He waggled his fingers next to his temple. “Servant…you know?”

Mal pushed back from the table. “Ruttin’ servant be damned! I know what I saw!” He could tell from the exchanged glances among his crew that they now felt that TWO of the crew were a few cows short of a herd.

He didn’t care. Gorramit, he knew what he SAW!

Strolling around to where Simon and River sat, Mal gestured at her. “Get up and come with me.”

Simon looked startled. “Captain, she is not—“

Mal turned his angry eye on Simon. “This is not your boat. I know what I saw” Mal stated, forgetting that he’d neglected to yet mention to the others just what he had seen. “She and I are going for a bit of palaver. Now.”

It was Inara who broke the stunned silence. “If you’d like to talk to River later Mal, she’s not going anywhere---“

Mal realized that the resistance was gathering. Another couple of minutes and this would swing totally against him.

One trump left to play.

River stiffened, probably aware of what he was about to say, and Mal noticed she did.

“River…I need you to come help on the flight deck with some course corrections.”

Immediately she stopped fluttering her “butterfly” and looked at him. “Course changes? Of course, Captain….let’s go.”

She arose. Mal grabbed her above the elbow, but she shook him off. She followed him though.

Jayne nodded his head sagely. “See what I mean….servant. Soon as you start talkin’ flyin’, she’s okay.” He suddenly gave the appearance of a man who’d had an idea. “Hey! Next time we hit port, let’s go lookin’ for a piano. Maybe she can play it. Get some music ‘round here.”

Simon, Zoë and Inara watched them leave. Each registered various looks of concern.

___________________________________________________________

Mal started before they even got out of the room. “You wasted perfectly good food. Food that cost money. Money that we had to make by takin’ from friends of ours. Dead friends. And I wanna know why.”

River remained silent.

Mal was stomping his feet harder on the deck plates than necessary as he walked.

“Did you see how they took up for you. You’re like the damn mascot on this boat. Only you’re a mascot that knows she’s a mascot. You’re usin’ that.”

As soon as they were out of earshot of the rest of the crew, River turned to Mal. “That was a sneaky trick. If I didn’t straighten up and go to the flight deck, then no one would have ever trusted me to fly Serenity again. Very sneaky. You really put me on the spot.”

By this point, he was beyond seething. “I put YOU on the spot? Ho ho ho” He laughed. His fingers began ticking off her offenses.”You lied to me. You wasted food.” He pointed at his chest. “You embarrassed me.”

She nodded. “I know.”

Mal chocked his head as though he hadn’t heard her. “You know? You weren’t having a crazy moment back in the kitchen, and you know that you embarrassed me?”

“Yes,” She said.

He needed to be sure. “Yes what?”

“Yes, I wasn’t having a crazy moment in the kitchen, and I know I embarrassed you.” She looked at him levelly.

Mal felt threatened suddenly. He’d sometimes felt fear, but this fear was deeper somehow. It was a fear of the unknown. As long as he had known her, River Tam had always been crazy. A figure of sometimes wonderment when she could Know things beyond the range of human knowing, but at the core still an object that needed looking after. A broken doll. An object of pity. Even when she was killing Reavers, you still saw her as more like a faithful dog, or like Jayne had said…a savant. A Reaver killin’ savant. A savant that was on their side.

Even though her conversations recently had begun to make sense to Mal, he’d never pictured her before as having her own agenda. Never pictured her as being nearly another species. One step beyond human. Now he did. Instead of the whimsical woman who spoke in riddles, played with jacks and killed Reavers with balletic skill in the protection of her chosen friends, he now saw someone who was a deceiver.

He remembered the words spoken by a mountain village elder back on Xan Ying. “She reads minds and spins falsehoods”.

Mal had just seen a falsehood from her. He hadn’t listened to himself last night. River did frighten people with her ways. Even though Mal had cautioned her about how people viewed her, how she could frighten people, he had never imagined himself being frightened. Until now.

She had frightened him.

River looked disappointedly at Mal. Suddenly she began to cry.

Instantly, Mal’s fear was gone.

She turned away from him and continued to cry.

One of his crew was crying. Because of him. Thank God Kaylee wasn’t around to see this. “Maybe I am some kinda monster, “ he thought.

She reached up and touched her face. With her back to him she spoke. “I’ll always do that. You know? From now on.”

He didn’t understand. “What?”

She sniffed her nose. “Frighten people.”

Mal denied it. “I’m not frightened.”

She spoke softly. “You are. If you thought I was normal—I mean if you thought I wasn’t broken—I mean if you--. And after we talked last night, I thought--” She broke into tears again.

Mal touched her shoulder. “Show me one of those hidin’ places you got. We need to talk.”

She didn’t move for a moment, and then abruptly began moving toward the forward area of the ship. She removed one of the access panels and crawled inside. Mal followed. In one of the darkened recesses, what Mal had previously thought was a shadowed area on the wall, River stepped forward. Mal found himself turning a corner and realized he was under the main bridge inside of a 6x6 hollow. More than enough space to stand and someone, River presumablely, had run a glow bulb wire.

She slumped against the wall, and wouldn’t look at him.

He nodded his head. “Yeah…you frightened me.” He hurried on as she began to tear up again. “For just a couple of minutes. I’m over it now.” He gestured at his skull. “Take a look if you think I’m lyin’.”

She avoided his gaze, but began casting furtive looks in his direction.

Mal suddenly smiled. “You scanned me. Didn’t think I’d know.”

She wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled slightly. “You still don’t know. You just guess that I scanned you. But you don’t know.” He continued to look at her. She suddenly laughed…not at her usual level, but more calmly. “Okay. I scanned you. Okay?”

He gestured to himself. “Smell any fear on me?”

She dropped her head. She looked like a child who’d been caught in a wrong. “No,” she said softly.

Mal knew it was time for the plunge. “What’s goin’ on, River? You ain’t as bad off as you are pretendin’….although it’s pretty clear you’ve got some tears still workin’ inside you. But you ain’t half as crazy as you pretend to be.”

She nodded.

Mal suddenly remembered something. “You scared me awhile ago. And you were reading me when I felt that emotion.” He pointed at her. “You told me last night that sometimes the emotion lingers in you…won’t go away. That’s it isn’t it? You’re still feelin’ what I felt ten minutes ago. I’m over it, but you still got it?”

She spoke toward the wall, looking away from him while she nodded. “You are the gorramdest thing sometimes, Malcolm Reynolds.”

Grinning, he replied. “Most times.”

She shook her head. Not in denial but in dejection. “Yes. I still feel what you felt.” Suddenly her voice was as bitter as winter. “It’s horrible. Someone you like suddenly has this awful thing in them…and you feel it…and it doesn’t go away….and you can’t run and you….”

He slapped her. He wasn’t trying to knock her across the ‘Verse, but he didn’t swing like a lightweight either.

She blinked. “That actually worked.” She gazed at him in wonder. “How did you do that?”

Looking at his hand, he spoke to her. “I just slapped you.”

“Amazing,” she said. “We’ve really got to incorporate this into some—“ She broke off and rubbed her jaw. “Okay. I’m feeling it now. Ouch….OUUUWWW….ohhhh…THAT HURTS. Okay…so much for that as a cure-all when I go off track.” She rubbed her cheek gingerly.

“Why the deception?” Mal asked.

She sighed. “Kaylee was afraid of me once. Did you know that?”

He nodded. “After raiding the Skyplex.”

“Yeah. She saw me do some things there.”

“Do you remember what you done?” Mal asked.

She answered him with world weary pathos. “Every bit of it. I could probably tell you the temperature in the room, and how many buttons they were missing on their jackets.”

“How long have you been better?”

She hemmed and hawed for a moment. “Since Miranda.”

He nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

She corrected him though. “It’s not like you think. I’m still not okay. I black out sometimes, but not like I did before. And I wasn’t lying when I said I was trying to work on things. But sometimes…” she twisted her hands together and then suddenly flung them apart “I’m acting like I’m crazy when I’m not.”

Mal had a practical concern. “You don’t black out while flyin’ Serenity, do you?”

She crossed her fingers. “So far…no.”

Mal nodded gratefully. He had a unexpected thought. “Do you remember what you said last night about jayne helpin’ out the people on Canton?”

She appeared startled. “No. Why? What did I say?”

“Not much.” Mal was beginning to see some of the limits and telltale signs on River’s power. “But you don’t remember it now. Which tells me you still got a little bit of…..” He couldn’t find the word.

“Crazy?” she asked him helpfully.

He nodded sheepishly. “Yeah…still a little bit of that goin’ on.”

She pointed her index finger at her head. “Well duh. That’s what I’ve been saying.”

Mal adjusted his coat. “Yeah…but I think I’m startin’ to get a feel for the pattern of it.”

“Really?”, River appeared more intriguied by this statement than anything Mal had ever said.

He nodded. “Ain’t quite got it figured yet..but there’s something there...”

She pointed at him emphatically. “Well when YOU know”, pointing back to herself, “Tell me.”

“Not to bring this conversation back to unpleasantness, but why did you throw your plate across the room?” he asked.

Her eyes expressed concern. “You were about to set up a meeting with Simon to talk about my condition.”

He shrugged. “And?”

“And I don’t want you to talk to Simon about my condition. For one thing, you’ll tell him everything we’ve said, which might make Simon think that we need to go back on a stricter regime of drug therapy.”

“Well…you see…that’s sorta what I was gonna tell him NOT to do.”

She gave him her “you’re an idiot look”. “You obviously haven’t been watching my brother. If he thought you were wrong, and he thought he was right, what do you think he’d do?”

Mal pondered this notion. “Like as not he’d find some way to drug you unconscious and steal you off the ship. Thinkin’ that I was trying to keep you from getting help.” Mal smirked. “Any fella who’d steal a girl from an Alliance institute and run halfway ‘cross the galaxy could probably do anything.”

She nodded vigourously. “And nothing you or I said could change that. Not unless we could make him see reason. And Simon has been too long trying to treat me to change overnight.”

“Well…I’ll admit there’s no defendin’ how far your brother’s ignorance goes,” He grinned at her.

“Watch it now,” she tossed her head and gave him an intent glare. “Us Tams stick together.”

“Yar…I was noticin’ THAT,” Mal said. “Just like inbred Core folk most always do. It’s in your genes.”

Since she was squatting, and he was standing, she was only able to hit the top of his boot with her open handed slap. Flies had hit Mal with more force before.

He cleared his throat, and her momentary frivolity diminished.

He nodded his head. “Yeah…you can tell. I’m about to go Captainy on you.”

She shook her head at his thoughts. “I can’t.”

He nodded slowly. “Yes…you can.”

She wrung her hands. “I told Jayne once that I’d kill him with my brain. He’s already scared of me.”

Mal answered her. “Look, I know that you and---. Hold up…you told him you’d kill him with your brain?”

She mischivously looked at the floor.

Mal ran his hands through his hair as he sighed. “And why did you do that?”

“Simon told him he’d be safe on his operating table. That we were all crewmates. And that we should trust each other.”

Mal pulled up his belt. “I guess we’ll have to Space Simon now for his horrible crimes. Askin’ folk to trust each other? What evilness is this? And what in the nether Hells does this have to do with you threatenin’ Jayne?”

“Simon told him that after we found out he turned us in on Ariel.”

“And boom…there it is,” Mal thought to himself…and maybe to River.

“Yeah, “ she said to him. “Boom.”

“Make that, ’Definitely to River’, “ he thought.

“So you and Simon both know, and have known for months now,” he stated.

“Yeah. And I’m glad Simon knows. It was a real learning experience for him. But at the time I just couldn’t trust Jayne.” She rolled her eyes. “He needed a….convincer.”

“Hence the ‘death by brain’ statement,” he declared ironically.

She twisted her hands some more. “It seemed like good idea at the time.” She said, her voice leaden with an unconvincing wheedling note to it.

Mal’s curiousity got the better of him. “And can you?”

Her eyes flew to his. He’d never seen such fear in another human before, and her face began to crumble. “ I don’t know.”

He squatted down next to her and draped his arm over her shoulder. She cried a bit more, and then pulled away.

“The way you see me, “ she started. “Is the way everyone aboard sees me. I’m the mascot. I’m deadly and I can fly the ship and I’m broken. If they see me as NOT broken, then their walls start to come up. The fear begins to build in them. And it hurts. It hurts SO BAD. It’s like you said last night. They start to wonder what I know about them, and they think I’m manipulating them.” She stared at him fully. “So I let them think I’m still the same as when I came aboard.” She patted his knee with her hand. “And why don’t we just let that little state of affairs continue for awhile…hmmm?”

He smiled at her…sternly. “’Sacrifyin’ gorram mental powers’…or not. “Idiot servant”…or not. Annoyin’ ass teenager snot bearer…or not. This is still my boat. And it’s my rules. Besides which, you’re totally wrong.”

She tentatively reached up and brushed a dangler from her nose.

He rose and moved toward the nooks exit. “And I’ll speak this out loud so there will be clarity between us. If I suspect in the future that you are acting out when you don’t need to be, I’ll turn you over my knee and to Hell with the consequences. You’ll stop this nonsense now. Dong luh ma?”

He stepped to the nook. Her voice stopped him.

“If we fought, I’d beat you.” Anger at being spoken down to was evident in her voice...as well as her youth. To Mal it just showed how strong she might have grown up…if the Alliance hadn’t gotten to her.

He met her eye and conjured up a mild montage of what he’d seen during 7 years of unceasing war against the Alliance in his thoughts. He self edited the worst parts. She visibly quailed from some of his memories.

Hopefully, she’d get the point.

“If we fought…I might lose. But I ain’t never been beat.” Lightly striking the wall with his closed fist, he released the hold on his anger. “’Sides which…I don’t have to worry. You wouldn’t fight me. You’d stop yourself.”

He moved through the access tube and didn’t hear her when she whispered, “My God, I hope you’re right.”

Red Run 5: Confrontin’

Serenity, Firefly, and any mention of the ‘Verse associated with them is entirely the property of the storytelling genius Joss Whedon, and also the property of the evil, vapid Fox Corporation. This fanfic is not for reproduction nor for sale. It is freely distributed as an effort of appreciation.

20.5 hours out from Ita Moon.

Mal headed back to the kitchen area.

Simon and Zoë were still there. Everyone else had gone.

Simon immediately began. “Captain, I don’t know what’s going on here but—“

Mal waved his arms to forestall Simon. “And that makes two of us, doctor. Suffice it to say that I hope River and I have come to an understandin’.”

“An understanding?” Simon rolled his eyes toward Zoë in an appeal for support, and then back to Mal. “Captain, I think there may be a little misperception going on here.” Simon closed his eyes and stuttered momentarily. “I..I..don’t want to sound like I’m condescending, but there are some aspects of mental health that I’m not sure you’ve…..experienced…before.”

“Oh really? And what exactly was your area of expertise in Medical?” Mal raised his eyebrows in mock interest.

Simon’s eyes narrowed. “Trauma surgery…and you already knew that.”

Mal flicked his finger toward Simon. “That’s right….I was forgettin’. And just how similar is mental health to trauma surgery?”

Simon remained silent. His face was flushed with anger. “They’re very dissimilar.”

Mal feigned shock. “Dissimilar? As in “not similar? As in “totally different”?” Mal continued. “As of this moment doctor you are to discontinue drug treatments on your sister.”

Simon laughed nervously. “Really, Captain. You’ve got to stop these jokes at my expense.”

Mal pointed to his face. “Look at me, doctor. Do I look like I’m jokin’? This isn’t the way I wanted to have this conversation, but maybe it’s just better to rip the bandage off”. Mal looked surprised at his own comparison for a moment. “So to…medically…speak.”

Simon was shaking his head. Too disbelieving to utter a word.

Zoë cleared her throat. Mal instantly pointed a finger at her. She raised her hands in temporary surrender, and said nothing.

Rapid footfalls came running down the crew passage. River Tam stepped quickly down the stair to the kitchen and fairly stormed up to Malcolm Reynolds.

“You promised me you wouldn’t say anything to him!” Breathing heavily, the color red flared across the bridge of her nose.

Mal shook his head. “I promised no such thing. Revisit our conversation. When did I say that I wouldn’t speak to your brother.”?

River turned her head aside for a moment in clear calculation, and then turned back to him. “I don’t care. We still had an understanding.”

Mal laughed aloud. “Ah…apparently we didn’t. I thought we did, but it seems I was mistaken. I thought you understood this was my boat.”

River balled up her fists and shook them at the ceiling. “Then we had…. an…arrangement…a compact…a gorramm rutting DEAL. Call it…whatever….you….WANT!” she screamed this last part. Moving closer to him, she whispered for his ears alone, “When you left, you were thinking that you’d give me the chance to prove myself from here on out, and that you weren’t going to interfere.”

Mal nodded. “Yep. Sure was. But on the way down here, I rechanged my mind. Imagine that.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m flawed that way.”

Although his response did little emotional good for River, Mal was content on one level with his and River’s present talk. It answered beyond a shadow of doubt one question Mal had retained. He now knew that River couldn’t kill with her brain alone, cause if she could, Mal would have been a smoking corpse on the ground from her eye power alone.

She whispered fiercely, “You planned this. You’re still planning something. I can almost…”

Mal filled his mind with memories of the airborne assault on Chan de Marque. The one where Chink Williams got killed. Hangin’ in the breeze while Federals cut---

She waved her arms. “Okay. Okay. I’ll stop.”

Malcolm walked behind the kitchen counter and poured a glass of milk. Keeping his mind partly focused on the present and partly on the War….really not too unlike a regular day…just in case River was still peekin’. “Do we still have any cat left over from breakfast? I left before I had a chance to finish.”

Zoë nodded behind him. “I put your plate in the cooler.”

Mal nodded appreciatively. “I guess it’s time to give you that promotion.”

Zoë hoisted her cup in salute. “Pay raise?”

Mal shook his head. “Don’t push your luck.”

River raised her hand, like a school student asking for attention. “Ah…we aren’t finished here. But if it will help you eat faster, that’s not cat. I just…said that.” She looked at both Simon and Zoë with embarrassment. “I’m…sorry.”

A hustling noise came from the crew passageway. Jayne scrambling from his customary eavesdropping position. He, slowly, descended the stairs and then hurried to the cooler. “Gorramit if I’m gonna miss out on sausage. I only eat three more once I thought it was cat.” Jayne shrewdly observed the ensemble of crew…and arrived at a calculation. He decided to share it with Zoë at the quickest possible moment.

Simon hung his head. “River. I can’t believe you—. Kaylee has been sick all morning because she thought she ate cat.”

River stood aghast at the thought of having hurt Kaylee.

Mal, never one to pass up making a point, no matter how sledgehammer force it might be, said, “See what happens when you play games. Good folk get hurt.” River glared at him in renewed fury. “Oooooohhhhhhh….” She clenched her fists and stormed away from the kitchen.

Simon, alarmed. “River. River! Come back! Where are you going?”

“I’m going to apologize to Kaylee!” River flung over her shoulder.

Jayne, carrying his plate of sausage, went over to Zoë, took the seat next to her, and bent to speak in her ear.

After a few moments, he asked, “I mean…whadda ya think?”

Zoë shook her head reflectively. “Too early to tell. Why don’t we see how it goes? You don’t need to know right now, do you?”

Jayne, disappointed but resigned, shook his head. “No. Not yet. You’re right….best to wait.”

Simon spoke to the air. “I blame you.” He looked at Mal.

Mal touched his fingers to his chest. “Me? I didn’t tell anybody it was cat.”

“Not about the rutting cat,” said Simon. “About River being upset. You spoke to her, and upset her.”

Mal dropped his hand from his chest. “Oh. That. Well, I guess there’s no denyin’ that one, doctor. I did indeed do that.”

“What have you got against her?” Simon asked, his face a mask of confusion.

Mal shook his head. “You got it all wrong. I like River, but sometimes, for bein’ such genius people, y’all make the dumbest mistakes.”

Simon raised his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m trying to debate with a Neanderthal. I can’t even begin to explain how stupid you are.”

Jayne glanced at Zoë. “Now?”

She shook her head. Jayne subsided back into his chair.

Mal pushed away from kitchen counter and approached Simon. “What did you call me?”

Simon stood his ground, and looked up into Mal’s eyes. “A Neanderthal. Homo neanderthalensis. Primitive man. A throwback. A dullard. A dunce. Stupid, slow witted, and messing in family affairs that he has no business messing in.”

Mal put his hands on his hips. “Are you tryin’ to insult me doctor? ‘Cause you might want to use smaller words. Otherwise us duncified throwbacks might not get the point.”

“Oh…again I’m subjected to the Border Worlds practice of creative word making when faced with a logical argument. Color me shocked and surprised,” said Simon acerbically.

Jayne glanced at Zoë. “He don’t looked surprised.”

Malcolm laughed. “You call tellin’ a man he’s stupid and slow-witted a logical argument? You need to work on your debatin’ skills doc.”

“Luckily though,” Simon replied. “It does mean I don’t have to feel guilty when I continue my sisters treatment under your nose. You don’t have to feel guilty when you do something a moron tells you not to do.” He picked up a nearby napkin and threw it toward Mal. “You can’t tell me what to do in regard to her treatment. I won’t stand for it.”

Mal stood silent.

Jayne: “Now?”

Zoë quickly shook her head.

Mal lowered his voice, forcing Zoë and Jayne to lean forward to hear. “Understand this doctor. Stand…sit….do a rutting folk dance for all I care…but if needle one injects that girl again on my boat, we’ll find out how you like being tethered to the back of Serenity in an atmosuit and dragged thru space.” Shaking his finger angrily, he continued. “I recognize I can’t watch you all the time, but I suspect you’ll not be doin’ a lot of injectin’ through Serenity’s hull.”

Simon stood livid, mortally terrified at the thought of time in a spacesuit, but only moderately afraid that Mal would truly carry out his threat.

“You’re insane,” Simon stated.

“I’m trying to help,” Mal countered.

Simon laughed sardonically. “Right. Of course. The great Malcolm Reynolds. Fixer of spaceships. He’s doing people now, too! You do this to everyone!”

“Excuse me?” Malcolm responded. “I don’t take your meanin’”.

Simon gestured toward Zoë. “You think I never talked to Wash? You think he never told me how he felt? About how you dragged Zoë behind you? How you stuck your nose in his marriage?”

Jayne glanced nervously at Zoë. “You know…I’d understand if you wanna call the whole thing off now. Maybe go back to your bunk and read.”

She glanced swiftly at him. “Are you kidding? It just getting good.” She leaned closer to Jayne until only he could hear. “Mal, Wash, and me settled all this a long time ago.”

Jayne contemplated this. “That whole sleep together thing, right?”

She nodded.

Jayne shook his head. “That is still downright unsettlin’.” He suddenly brightened. “So then…is it time?”

She lifted her hand in exasperation. “Nooooooooo. Not yet.”

Mal raised his voice to answer this newest accusation. “Zoë, Wash and I settled all that a long time ago. He spoke his piece. I spoke mine. We understood each other.”

Simon jumped in. “And Zoë? Did you consult Zoë?”

Mal faltered. “Well….that…wasn’t…so much expressed as it--. Well, I mean, Wash was there, and we were being tortured, and it just wasn’t the time for—. But yeah…eventually…she was…………told.”

Jayne looked at Zoë. “Was you consulted?”

Zoë slowly turned her head to look at Jayne. “You know...until this moment…I hadn’t really thought about it.” She smirked “Best I don’t think on it too much now, I’m guessin’.” She said with chagrin.

Jayne nodded. “Score one for the doc?”

Zoë nodded hastily. “Oh yes. Of course.”

Simon continued his victorious push. “You see! You didn’t consult Zoë in her future. You and Wash got together and just decided to ride roughshod. Didn’t matter if you forgot to think about someone along the way. Just like you’re doing now!”

Mal roared back. “It weren’t like that! Zoë and I got history! The War! Afterward! I’d cut off my right arm for her!”

Simon “But you wouldn’t bother to ask her how she feels about her life? How skewed is that? At least River has an excuse for being mentally disturbed. Her brain was cut open. What’s yours?”

Zoë and Jayne both winced. “Another point?” Jayne asked.

Zoë, with pained expression, looked at him. “Ya even gotta ask?”

Inara slipped quietly into the kitchen, and approached Jayne and Zoë. She studiously ignored Mal and Simon, and they agitatedly failed to notice her, being as Mal was engaged in a graphic description of the war.

She took the seat on the other side of Zoë. “I heard arguing all the way to my shuttle. What’s going on?”

Zoë gestured in the direction of the crew quarters. “River came in and was angry with Mal for violating some arrangement they had. Seems he wasn’t suppose to tell the doctor not to stop her medical treatments. But Mal told him to stop anyway.”

Inara’s breath blew out in a whistle. “Wow. When did this arrangement start?”

Zoë shook her head. “No clue. Still waiting on further info.”

Inara, with some embarrassment, began to speak. “I know I shouldn’t ask this…but who’s winning?”

“The doc”, simultaneously from Jayne and Zoë.

Inara shook her head in puzzlement. “There’s something missing.”

Zoë tapped Inara on her arm. “Jayne and I are gonna cover it.”

Inara looked relieved. “Oh thank God. I wasn’t looking forward to it. Whose idea was it?”

“Remarkably… Jayne’s,” Zoë replied, and favored him with a grin.

Inara quietly clapped her hands together to honor him.

He gave them each a mocking bow.

Zoë gestured back at the two men. “I think the Captain’s coming to his point.”

“---so I seen my fair share of insanity doctor. War does that to a man. I seen it, but I walked out of it. Clear as a mental bell.”

Simon gestured absently. “That’s your excuse? You went to the war? Okay, Captain, I’ll admit I can’t compete with that---“

Jayne moaned low in his throat. “Uh-oh…you’re in for it now, Mal.”

“But I did have my sister stolen from me. I did have my family disown me. I do have the entire force of the Alliance looking to kill me. I did have all my money, my career, and my office taken away from me. I had all that happen…and I’ll acknowledge it doesn’t measure up to the War, but I faced it alone. I didn’t have a Brigade behind me to help—“

Jayne groaned. He held up three fingers for Zoë’s perusal. She nodded. “Yep. You got it.”

Inara was shaking her head in frank admiration. “When you get Simon on a topic he cares about, he really comes out swinging.”

Jayne agreed. “Yeah. Family fights is always the worst. They know what hurts ya.”

Inara caught Zoë’s eye, shocked. “Family?”, she mouthed without speaking.

Zoë indicated her surprise to Inara at Jayne’s comment with a quizzical eyebrow.

Mal stomped across the kitchen, very nearly arriving where Zoë and the others sat watching. They, for their part, immediately adopted absolute silence. Mal turned back to Simon.

“I ain’t got the Brigade with me now. It’s just you and me doctor. And a wasn’t raised fancy like you was, and I didn’t have no platinum spoon in my mouth when I was born, but I ain’t blind, and ain’t dumb. I’ve seen some things lately that need addressin’. This ain’t the way of it that I’d have preferred, but right now I know more than you—“

Simon interrupted with a mocking laugh. “If you had the rest of your life to study a hundred thousand medical books, and the entire Cortex to research, you’d still never know as much as I know about medicine right now.”

The Captain flared back. “I ain’t talkin’ medicine. Not strictly. I’m talkin’ PEOPLE. What moves ‘em and what scares ‘em. THAT I’m knowin’.”

Simon frowned. “Scares them? River’s got a right to be scared! They ARE hunting us. They DID torture her! Who wouldn’t be scared?”

“She ain’t scared a that.”

Simon just stared at Mal.

Mal realized suddenly how dumb that sounded and moved to correct himself. “Well, I mean, she ain’t scared a that RIGHT NOW. I mean, of course she’s scared of them blue hand guys and all that, but that ain’t what’s on her mind.”

Simon’s face softened. “Captain…it’s hard for all of us, and I think you really do want to see River get better. I shouldn’t have accused you of having something against her…it’s just that her treatment is so important….and I’ve known her longer. And I AM a doctor.” Simon moved closer to Mal and placed his hand on Mal’s arm in a plea for empathy. “You understand, don’t you?” He dropped his hand and moved away from Mal.

Mal hung his head and spoke quietly to his back. “I sure do.” Mal raised his voice. “No needles.”

“You stupid, idiotic jackass!” Simon yelled, spinning to confront Mal again. “This is a girl’s…my sister’s!….LIFE we are talking about here!”

Mal roared back. “Gorramit, I KNOW!”

River and Kaylee entered the room. River quickly split off to approach her brother and Mal. Kaylee came over and joined the group at the table.

Zoë nodding her head in greeting. “Kaylee.”

Kaylee slipped into a chair on the other side of Jayne. Starting from left to right now, the seating arrangements were Inara, Zoë, Jayne, and Kaylee. All of them sat on the fartherest side of the table, watching the confrontation near the cupboard area.

“What’s going on?” she whispered.

Zoë answered her. “Seems like the Captain and River had some kind of arrangement. He wasn’t suppose to tell Simon to quit her treatments. Only he came back awhile ago and did that. She came in upset and accused Mal---“

Jayne interrupted. “Tell her about the cat.”

Zoë shot him an annoyed look. “I was coming to that.”

Kaylee spoke up. “I know about the sausage not being cat. River told me.”

Inara leaned forward and caught her eye. “What happened when River found you?”

Kaylee glanced at Simon and Mal to see where the argument was going. The two men had separated briefly in order to sip their respective beverages. No doubt as throat lubrication for the next bout. River hovered near her brother, but had as yet not spoken to either man.

“Well, I was in my bunk, and she tapped on the door. I went and opened it and she climbed down, and said she wanted to talk with me. It was really strange—“

Jayne grunted. “Yeah…well…consider the source.”

Kaylee continued. “No…that ain’t what I mean. River wasn’t….flighty or nothin’ like that. The way she was talkin’ was really…sane. And awfully sweet too…I mean the way she was standin’ there.” Kaylee broke into a beaming smile. “You could see she was about a thousand times embarrassed about something…even before she opened her mouth. “So she says, ‘Kaylee…I’ve got to apologize about something.’ And I’m about to fall over in shock..cause that ain’t somethin’ River does very often…apologizin’, I mean. Well…I guess she must have…KNEW I was thinkin’ that….what with that WAY of hers. Cause she looked up at me and said, “I do apologize when I’ve done wrong, Kaylee…don’t I?” She looked so hurt, the poor dear. And I didn’t really know what to say to that…cause really that ain’t River’s way. She’s more like to go hide in the ship if she’s upset about somethin’…not go runnin’ back to apologize. And I guess she’d never thought about that, and must have known I was thinkin’ about it. So she tells me that she tried to apologize once after tearin’ up somethin’…but she says it didn’t work out so well for her. And she says maybe she’s gotten out of the practice of apologizin’. “So I tell her that not apologizin’ aint the worst thing a person can do. Look at Jayne, I tell her, he never apologizes and he’s done lots worse.”

Jayne: “Hey! I’m sittin’ right here.” He pointed at his chair in emphasis.

Kaylee ignored him. “And she says I’m kind to point that out—“

Zoë, surprised. “River said that?”

Kaylee nodded her head in agreement. “I know. Isn’t it incredible?”

Inara: “Go on Kaylee.”

“So I say to her ‘It ain’t so hard bein’ kind to you River. You been kind to me so many times, and saved my life and all when Early come aboard. And I tell her I’m grateful as all git out about that. So she’s kinda calmed down some and tells me about the sausage not being cat and how she was play actin’” “So I ask her if that was suppose to be a practical joke, and she tells me that it wasn’t…not quite. She was more trying to act crazy…even though she wasn’t right then.”

Jayne, Inara and Zoë all looked at Kaylee.

Jayne spoke first. “That seems kinda sneaky. What were the purpose?”

Kaylee fluttered her hands. “She didn’t say. ‘Course…I may not have given her the chance to— Well nevermind.“

Inara smiled at Kaylee’s discomfort. “No Kaylee, c’mon. Tell us. What did you do?”

Kaylee blushed bright red. “Well…you see…I’d been throwin’ up all mornin’ and I’d made breakfast and done some engine work, so I was HUNGRY. And then to find out she’d had me all worried about breakfast for nothin’.” Kaylee paused. “We had this cat, Brewster, back at my daddy’s place, and I been thinkin’ all day that I mighta eat one a Brewsters brothers.” Kaylee sighed. “So when she told me it was a big fakeroo, I kinda…sorta…hit her with a pillow.” Kaylee shrugged helplessly. “I was just mad, and starving, and…….mad. And I just wanted to hit her with the pillow. So she grabbed a pillow, and I kept callin’ her names, and we just wailed on each other for a minute until I weren’t mad no more.”

Inara covered her mouth with both hands and laughed silently.

Zoë smiled.

Jayne got a far away look in his eye. “Oh yeah. Yeah.” His hand twitched spasmodically. ”I can almost picture that.” He cleared his throat and glanced significantly at Kaylee. “You know…I woulda paid money to see that. Still would.” He nodded suggestively.

Zoë tapped his arm. “Don’t be thinkin’ on it too hard. I’d hate to hafta break your finger.”

Jayne subsided, and then added ruminatively, “Ya think this is gonna go on much longer? I’m kinda thinkin’ ‘bout goin’ back to my bunk.”

The women all rolled their eyes in disgust.

Kaylee had one final point to make. “Course…afterwards…we was standin’ there, and laughin’ some, and then River just stopped. She really looked like River then. And says outloud that Simon and Mal are arguin’. And she headed back here real quick. That seemed real River normal.”

The others nodded in agreement.

Kaylee glanced at the two men pacing the floor. River was standing nearby quietly awaiting the next explosion, unready to kick it off herself.

Kaylee dropped her head shyly. “ I know I shouldn’t ask this…it’s really not that big of a deal…but who is---?”

“The doc” simultaneously from the other three.

Kaylee eyes lit up, and she glanced at Simon with an undisguised interest. “Really?” Her voice dropped a point or two. “Wow. That’s…..sorta sexy.” She shook herself and glanced around the room. “We’re missing something.”

Jayne held up his hand without looking at her. “Already thought of it.”

Kaylee was amazed. “YOU? Well….my gosh Jayne…that’s mighty……..thoughtful. But when?”

Jayne nodded his head to the right, still watching Mal and Simon. “Up to Zoë. She’ll know when it’s right.”

Kaylee nodded her agreement.

Jayne bobbed his head toward Mal, River and Simon. “It’s about to start again.”

Inara, glancing swiftly between the arguers and Jayne, asked, “How can you tell?”

Jayne grunted. “Mal. He always tugs at his coat afore he starts to tell someone off.”

Zoë frowned. “I been with the Captain neigh on 10 years now and I ain’t never noticed it.”

Jayne sneered. “You ain’t been on the receivin’ end much as I have.”

Mal put down his milk, straightened his jacket and gathered his thoughts. “Doctor…now that your sister is here, I believe there is a few things we need to hear from her.”

Simon stepped closer to Mal. “I don’t need you making my job harder with her by telling her it’s all right to forego treatment. I have a hard enough time as it is.”

River moved to the point halfway between the two men, but to the side. Their confrontation now no longer resembled a mano e mano session, but a triangle.

She spoke to her brother. “Simon…I already know.”

Looking toward her, Simon sputtered, “Wha…you know? How do you know?”

She gestured to herself. “I just know, okay? I asked the Captain not to tell you to stop my treatments--”

Simon swung back to the Captain triumphant. “You see! Even the patient realizes that you’re trying to harm her care—“

Mal disgustedly spoke over him. “That ain’t what she means, she’s tryin’ to tell you—“

“WOULD THE TWO OF YOU PLEASE SHUT UP!” River screamed.

Silence reigned.

Simon, predictably, was the first to recover. “River…” he began.

She eyed him fiercely. “Simon…I said….‘SHUT UP’”.

Jayne, seeing the treatment of Simon, was grinning with delight.

She took a deep breath. “Captain Reynolds is right. I asked him not to order you to stop my treatments. Not because I think your treatments are working, but because I know that you set such store by them. You believe you are helping me, but you aren’t. The treatments aren’t working.”

Simon, placating, spoke softly. “River…I know you think that. But you just have to give them time—“

“We’ve taken enough time, Simon. We’ve done a thousand drug combinations, and we’ve tried corrective treatments until I’m sick to death of them…and I’m no better because of them.”

Simon opened his mouth. She shushed him.

“I had good reasons for asking the Captain to tell you to maintain the status quo.”

Mal spoke up. “For the record, I’m the one not agreein’ that there is good reasons.”

“Quiet,” she snarled.

Simon looked confused. “You don’t believe in the treatments anymore, but you told the Captain to not stop me giving them?”

“That’s correct,” she stated crisply.

“Why?” he asked simply.

She hung her head and then looked up to stare at him defiantly. “Because I couldn’t trust you.”

Simon was devastated. “You….you couldn’t trust me. River, you can always trust me.”

She shook her head ‘no’. “Not in this thing. You’re too close to it. No perspective.”

He shook his head in denial.

She countered him with a question. “Who make the worst patients?”

“Other than you?” He asked. “I suppose you want me to say doctors.”

She nodded. “And would you ever take a diagnosis from someone who wasn’t a doctor….someone who knew even less about medicine than you?”

Simon glanced nervously at Mal. “I…think I’ve already shown today that I would not.”

She stepped closer to her brother and took his arm. “And would you take a diagnosis from your patient? Especially if she was a little soft in the brain pan?”

Simon laughed uncertainly. “It’s not the place of the patient to know more than their doctor.” He blinked his eyes and spoke wryly. “It’s why we get paid so well.”

The peanut gallery was subtly amused by this.

She nodded. “So do you see the position I was in? You wouldn’t listen to me, and you wouldn’t listen to someone who wasn’t medically trained…and you probably wouldn’t listen to someone who was medically trained either, because you’re an extremely self-confident know-it-all doctor.” She smiled at him slyly. “Made worse by the fact that you’re my brother AND a know-it-all.”

He laughed at her, and she continued to smile at him. Simon paused and looked at her. He opened his mouth to speak. “You haven’t…..”

She raised her eyebrows in question.

He went on. “You haven’t spoken like this in a very long time.”

She openly regarded him for several moments. “No.” she said. “I haven’t.”

“River…I don’t know what….” He stopped speaking, and frowned. He pointed to her left cheek. “Why is your face bruised?”

River’s hand swiftly rose to her cheek and she nervously glanced at Mal. Simon noticed.

He turned slowly to face Mal. His eyes were murderous. “There are bruises on my sister’s face.”

Mal shuffled his feet in embarrassment. He tried to brazen it out. “Really? Must be the bad lighting in here. I don’t notice no—“

Simon spoke very quietly. “You struck my sister?”

Across the room, Zoë turned to Jayne and spoke one word.

“Now.”