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Mal and His Mollymawk

by Ariane

The Boot is not the classiest bar in Culloden, Persephone, but neither is it the crudest. Ananda's having a fairly good time at any rate. The light beer is just fine with her, though there aren't enough corners or booths or clouds of cigarette smoke for her to be confident that Mal can't see that she's got it.

Andie was pleased as anything when she found out that she, Mariel, and Aunt River would be spending the summer at the Reynolds' ranch, hanging out with Ben and riding every day. Before they left, Mal had a serious conversation with her daddy: "Yes, I'll babysit your damn kids. No, when do I ever get anyone in trouble? Yeah, yeah, your sister can kill me with her brain. Can we go now?" If he sees Andie with alcohol, he'll haul her pi gu home faster than you can say--

"Mollymawk, what's that you got?"

"Cider?" she tries.

"Ain't you a riot," he says, leaning against a vacant pool table and holding his hand out. "Gimme that."

Andie rolls her eyes and wraps her hands tighter around the glass. "Come on. One drink. Barely even a drink--it's just beer."

"Oh, is that all?" he says, raising his eyebrows as though mightily impressed. "Well, then you can explain that to your daddy when I drag you down the street to his clinic and tell him to smell your breath. Ain't growin' up a bar harpy."

Andie giggles in half-disbelief. "Bar harpy?"

She's made him feel silly, which is something of a victory. "I--well, that's just--you--" Aw, screw it, his expression says. "Give it here, girl."

She pouts, but does as she's told. "Mama wouldn't mind. And I know you don't mind."

"Nope."

"Then why--"

"Been over that, mollymawk."

"Ben drinks." Now she's just being petty. But he's spoiled her fun, so she feels like some pettiness is warranted.

Mal is supremely unimpressed with pettiness, always has been. "Ben's eighteen and legal. Wait three years and you will be, too."

"Uncle Mal," Andie says, pushing her luck now. "Was he legal four years ago, when he started?"

"I ain't your uncle. And Ben lives under my rules and not your daddy's," Mal says, clearly getting annoyed now. "This ain't up for discussion. Order a soda."

He leaves her to her own devices then, confident that she won't cross him. And she doesn't. Instead she turns her attention to the blond boy in a scruffy flightsuit who's been lookin' her up and down since she came in the room. There are other ways to turn the remainder of Mal's hair gray.

This, right here, is why Daddy still has reservations about trusting his elder daughter to Mal's care. It's 'cuz the latter is a "permissive parent," as Daddy says. He gives orders, and they're obeyed (because he's scary when they're not), but beyond that everyone is free to do as they damn please. It drives Inara wild, since she's the one left to tell Ben that no, he may not get a tattoo, not even a bitty one of a skull.

Of course it also means that Andie gets to see the inside of a bar now and then. To think she's walked past this place on the way to school every day for six years and never seen the inside of it.

Inara would really rather be here at The Boot herself, but she and Aunt River are up at the big ranch house with Ben. Poor Ben's got a cold and an earache so bad he can't lay still for the pain. Everybody else was real sympathetic, offering him all kinds of meds and glasses of water, up until Mal said, "Goin' into town, who wants a seat in the mule?"

Mama and Mariel won their seats by right of necessity: Mariel needed to be fitted for her first bra. Little darlin' was growing up. Mal agreed hurriedly to take them wherever they wanted just so's his mei mei would shut up on the topic. Zoe wanted another roll of barbed wire for the fence she and Mal were putting up. Andie and Aunt River duked it out for the remaining space, and Aunt River let Andie win. Only explanation for a mind-readin' genius losing at rock-paper-scissors.

Wishin' he'd simply snuck off in the night by his lonesome, Mal packed his passel of girls into the mule and took off.

Andie's busy telling all this to the swai young pilot with the sandy hair, but his eyes are a little south of her face and he doesn't seem to be listening too closely. Disappointed, she excuses herself and escapes to the ladies' room.

She takes a minute or two to fluff her hair and check her eyeliner in the mirror. When she returns from the restroom, the whole bar has gone bizarrely quiet. Everyone is crowded toward the edges of the room, eyes riveted on the same thing. Andie pushes through their ranks, and when she sees what they do, she freezes.

Uncle Mal's a few feet away with his back to her, hands up in surrender. In the middle of the room under the "Alliance Credits Not Accepted" sign, a wiry, leather-faced redheaded man stands with a sleek handgun held loosely at his side.

"I told you I'd kill you slow next time I saw you, Reynolds," the redhead says. He's pissed and jittery and a little drunk, too short-tempered to even stand still.

"Bertani," Mal says with a friendly, unnerving smile. "Remember the creepy guy with the accent back on Jiangying? It was twenty gorram years ago, but try."

"I remember every second of that day like--"

"Remember how he threatened to sell ya out? You think it's possible that--and I'm just guessin' here--he sold you out? As in, him and not me?"

It's just occurred to Andie that she shouldn't be here, that she'll be of no use at all to Mal, when Bertani raises his gun. The graceful arc of it nails her boots to the floor. She gasps, and the words "No, don't!" slip from her lips. They are deafening in the silence. Bertani's eyes turn her way.

"This belong to you?" he asks Mal, leering.

Mal glances over his shoulder and looks Andie up and down like he's never seen her before. Like she's a piece of meat. She goes cold. "Don't travel with that much baggage."

"No?" Bertani says. And then he tests his new theory. The gun swings a little to the left and suddenly Andie is staring squarely into its wicked black barrel. Mal responds beautifully; every line of his body goes rigid. Bertani grins triumphantly and tosses his head, throwing red curls out of his eyes. "What say I let you live. As a favor for an old friend. I'll make do with this girl you never met afore, don't give two humps about, and be on my merry."

Andie has never known fear like this. It leaves her cold and steals the air from her lungs. Mal just looks angry. He glares at Bertani and then again at Andie, who's standing like an idiot, hands in front of her and shaking like a struck bell.

"Ni ta ma de. Tian-xia suo-you de ren dou gai si," he mutters. She's just made his life infinitely more difficult. "Listen, Bertani," he says, still absurdly cool. "She ain't a part of this, and threatenin' little girls ain't exactly civil. So you just let her--"

"You gonna come with me, say hey to them boys you sent to lockdown all that time ago?" Bertani demands.

"Since you're so insistent on it," Mal says, fuming.

"Good. They'll wanna thank you in person."

The captain looks just thrilled at that prospect, oh, yes indeed, but he nods. "You let her go first. Soon as I'm satisfied she's out of it, we'll have a gorramn reunion on your hunk of go se. That's how it works."

"You think you can tell me how shit works when I got a gun on this bit o' pretty?" Bertani says. But his aim wavers. Andie's heartbeat spikes with every twitch.

"Yes, I surely do, and since I ain't askin' so much of you, I'd think you'd have the sense to put the ruttin' thing down."

Bertani sneers, but he lowers the gun. Andie's knees feel wobbly. "Git outta here, girl."

Just then, the spring-loaded back door snaps closed with a noise like a shot. Bertani damn near jumps out of his skin and, in a panicky reflex, cocks his gun.

The whole bar shrieks in fear and scrambles for any scrap of cover to be found. Anyone who can reach one of the exits disappears in record time. In the middle of it all, Mal roars "Down, Andie!" and lunges in front of her.

Andie doesn't see the rest. Her limbs go all to jelly and do the obeying for her. Next second there's guns going off, and she thinks she can hear the air sing with lead.

"Take cover, Andie," Uncle Mal barks in the voice usually reserved for Zoe. "Now-ish."

I can't move, she thinks feverishly. Don't ask me to move.

"Crawl, darlin'!" he bellows. She crawls. In a trice she's tucked up under the nearest pool table, trembling like crazy and praying with her eyes screwed shut. Through the pandemonium she hears a horrible squelch-crack, and another, and another. Then everything goes quiet.

A pair of boots drag across the floor to her hiding place, and Mal's voice says, "Mollymawk?" She shakes quietly in the shadows. "Come on out now, darlin'. It's all right."

Like a toddler running for mommy, she scrambles out and up and into his arms. He bites down on a scream, and suddenly something warm and liquid sticks her shirt to her chest. She opens her eyes--when did she close them?--and there's a spreading red stain on her favorite white blouse. There's a bigger, slicker one glistening darkly on Mal's shirt, just under the ribcage on the left side. Everything goes sharply into focus. "Uncle Mal?"

He stumbles back a step. Andie tries to pull him forward again, but Mal won't be pulled. "Ain't your uncle," he says in a voice shot through with pain.

"Bertani?"

"He ain't your uncle, either. No, don't look, bao bei." But too late. She seems to be having difficulties with orders tonight, and for her trouble she gets an eyeful of bloody pulp and exposed bone. Five minutes ago it was a face. Not so much anymore. Mal sighs.

"I'm gonna need you to help me some," he says. "We're gonna get to the mule, then get to your dad's clinic, dong ma?"

"You don't want police or--or paramedics or somebody?"

"Don't want the law anywhere near this."

She's not sure if she can breathe at the moment, and she knows her lower lip is trembling pathetically. He is nearly a foot taller than her, and far too heavy for her to take his weight. And she really, really wants to crawl back under the pool table. The black eyes of gun barrels stare from every corner of this empty bar. She is the wrong person to ask, exactly the wrong one. Zoe or Aunt River would have laid Bertani out soon as lookin' at 'im. Daddy or Mama or even little Mariel would be seein' to Mal like they oughta. Inara would keep her head and do what was necessary--none of these hysterics. And Ben, the smug bastard, would be smart-assing his dad all the way to the operating room.

"Mollymawk?"

She nods, feigning courage.

"Good girl. Duck under my arm. Good. Now keep pressure on the wound."

She tries to be gentle in pressing the heel of her hand to his side.

"I said pressure, not a ruttin' tickle, girl."

Andie presses. He leans on her, and they make their stumbling way out the back door, Mal hissing in pain every few steps. The mule isn't far away; it's parked just around the side of the bar. Andie helps him climb into it, then hurries around to the driver's side and straps in.

She has to steer one-handed, with her left, all heart-pounding twelve minutes home. Her right hand is plugging Mal's wound.

"You keep your eyes on the road, darlin'," he keeps telling her. "Ai ya, see if you get a copy of the key like you been beggin' for."

"Oh, I'm sorry if I can't concentrate with you bleeding to death in the passenger seat," she snaps. He laughs, and she wants to smack him, but she's out of hands. Instead she says, without really wanting to: "Who was that man?"

"A right ta ma de hun dan, that's what."

That's not an answer. Her driving gets worse as her hands start to shake again. "You... Uncle Mal, what did you do to him?"

"I fixed his face for him. Ain't ever gonna take a shot at you again." It's a growl with a ring of finality, and Andie doesn't want to know the rest. Mama once told her that the captain (Mama still calls him the captain, just as Zoe still calls him sir) would kill and die for any of his family, but especially for the women, 'cuz he's old-fashioned like that. Top of the list are the miniature ones: his mollymawk and her little sister the kittiwake. Andie has always believed it abstractly, without ever wanting incontrovertible evidence. Now she's got it. There's not a warm fuzzy in sight.

Ten minutes later, the mule roars up in front of the clinic and Andie goes tearing through the front door, screaming for her daddy.