Part Four (or Part IV for them's as prefer their numerals in the Roman fashion.) of what is now formally entitled The Ghosts of Serenity story arc. Guess it's time to do disclaimers and stuff. Firefly belongs to Joss Whedon and all our hearts. Story is mine, steal it and I'll pay Maniac good currency to make your life... interesting. ---------------------------------------------

She was a very pretty girl. Correction. Around these parts, she was a woman, just past her seventeenth year and older than a lot of the women who'd already married and started on their families. She was a beautiful young woman, and she was standing in his front office, looking tense, her eyes cast toward the floor and her fingers fidgeting the frill of her tan and khaki dress, obviously manufactured from surplus war material with a bit of lace tossed in for decoration. It wasn't really her color, not with the slight golden cast of her skin, and it was obviously a hand-me-down that didn't quite fit her right. That it fit her a bit more tightly than was obviously comfortable was probably going to be a severe challenge to Cafferty's focus on maintaining a professional doctor-patient relationship. He wondered what brought Yinna Davens, the town's most eligible bachelorette, into his office. Strictly speaking, there were any number of feminine situations and complaints with which he was familiar. Serving as a medic in a co-ed regiment certainly introduced a man to such things, and he was hoping against hope that the professional detachment he'd managed to maintain then would hold up now. But then he'd had other alternatives for relief at that point. If nothing else, he did get the chance for professional company of the female variety. His current locale was a bit too small for that sort of thing. What he was really hoping was that she wasn't pregnant and looking for a face-saving remedy to the situation. That wasn't something that he'd seen covered in Frontier Medicine. "Doc," she started, raising her head to look at him. With a practiced gesture, she brushed the dark hair, slightly tinged with red, from her eyes, and his heart skipped a beat or two. "I got somethin' I gotta ask you about." "Why don't you sit down and tell me about it?" he said, trying to be paternal and professional at the same time, gesturing to the couch. "Thanks much, doc, but I'd rather stand if it's all the same to you." "Whatever makes you comfortable," he said, pushing aside visions of Yinna sitting on the couch and crossing... and uncrossing, those wonderful legs. Not that he would see much with such a modest hemline, but his vivid imagination was running wild at this point. "Doc, I wanna work for you," she gushed out suddenly. "I wanna be your secretary, or nurse, or both. I mean, I don't know much for doctoring, but I've been around the yard and I don't think I'll go over on you. And I know my letters and my numbers, the shepherd learned me good on those, and I've been doing the books for my daddy for a while, and I can tidy up the place and keep things running smooth." Well. That was certainly unexpected. It was one of those laugh or cry situations. He was saved from temptation by the prospect of having temptation around on a daily basis. "Yinna," he said, biting his lip. "Don't you, well, I mean, aren't you looking to start a family?" "I don't wanna get married!" she said, firmly. "I wanna go places, see things, get off this world and see the 'verse! I mean, I figured you'd understand. You're from offworld." Cafferty opened his mouth, closed it, and nodded slowly. He hadn't been much of a wanderer as a youth, happy at home before the draft scooped him up and sent him to the stars. But he could relate to her desire to broaden her horizons. He'd certainly never thought about a medical career before his profile had gotten him placed in that specialty, but now it fit as naturally as a glove. He sometimes had vague regrets about taking the deal and mustering out locally instead of going back to the Core to get professional training. But then he would have had to leave Kellerman and Jian-Ku behind, and they were his closest family members now. No contest there. He could write to his parents and siblings. On Ariel, he would just be another number in a vast body of aspiring practicioners. Here, he was the only semi-professional medical help available for nearly four hundred kilometers. He was a healer, a person who gave people second chances and new opportunities for the lives that they took so much for granted. Yinna couldn't have aimed her volley at a better target. "It'll be hard work. There'll be weeks when you can flat forget about sleeping," he started, setting up for a good, inspirational speech. She jumped up and down, clapped and cut him off at the pass. "I can! You'll let me! THANKS! When can I start?" He laughed, standing up and sliding the chair aside. "Right now. This is your desk now." Getting out his billing book, he opened up the heavy tome. With artless casualness, she moved close to him, putting her body alongside his as he started explaining the basics of keeping records for his operation. It is a good thing, a very good thing, he thought, that my current bathing facilities consist of a tub that I usually fill with cold water. Normally it was because at the end of another long day, he didn't have the energy to heat up the water before pouring it in. He had a feeling that it was no longer going to be a matter of laziness, but rather a necessity.

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"Afternoon, doc. Word with ya?" said Jacob Davens. He'd already slapped an arm around Cafferty's back, so the polite request was entirely an empty formality. "Sure thing, Mr. Davens. What's on your mind?" Cafferty asked. He knew what was coming, but it wouldn't do to jump the gun on the cliche speech that was coming. There were protocols to be observed here, and after a couple of years he was getting pretty good at understanding them. But only up to a point. There was a vast gulf between his view of the 'verse and the one held by men like Davens, a gulf of experience and culture that he'd never quite bridge if he lived another hundred years. Back on Ariel, the common citizen would call it sophistication. Cafferty had learned that sophistication was a relative concept, because these local people were entirely intelligent and sophisticated people, for their environment. The callow city boy he'd been before the war wouldn't have lasted five minutes in this town, for certain. "Doc, my little girl said you agreed to take her in to work for you," Davens said, quietly. "Now she's a good girl, asked me before she went out to you. 'Course, if I'd said no, she still would've come. But she's good enough to ask, and it ain't like I can exactly say no to her, all grown big and lookin' just like her mother. Now I don't want you to take this personally, doc, 'cause you've been good for this town, and you done stood beside us. But that's my little girl. She'll do good for you, smart as her mother was. But if you start thinkin' what any man would be thinkin' in your position, I'll tell you this. You put a ring on her finger, if that's what she agrees to, or you keep it to yourself. See yonder tree?" Davens pointed at the tree toward the middle of town, straddling the middle of one of the two roads that cut through the lovely metropolis. The hanging tree. "Yeah." "Nice strong limbs on that tree, son." "Strictly a professional relationship, Mr. Davens," Cafferty assured him. "Your daughter is already cleaning up my books and organizing my... her office." "Oh, she'll do that just fine. Only problem is that if'n she goes and gets her own place, my boy is gonna have to take over the numbers on the ranch. He's a good boy, but he ain't got the head for numbers that his sister does," Tone shifting, he continued. "I've got my money tied up in three diversionary accounts and run a good portion of my profits through a shell corporation that does scooter repairs and regularly shows very bad negative profits to ameliorate my overall loss from the gorram collectors." Davens spat on the ground as he finished, the disgust at Alliance tax collectors evident in his voice. Cafferty swiveled around to look at him as the man's arm dropped from his back. It was a joke that some of the border worlders played on occasion, dropping their local vernacular and accents to show off the fact that not all of them were ignorant rustics. But this was a confession that could get his entire operation seized, if Cafferty were to say anything about it to the right, or wrong person. Davens winked at him. "Remember the tree, son." he said, before tipping his hat and turning to walk away.