"How's he doin'?" Zoe says from the doorway of the operating room. She says it in her Amazon voice, all soldier-y and firm. Perhaps this is why Daddy answers as though reporting to a superior, with a long string of medical jargon and a few recognizable phrases scattered in: "bullet path," "tissue damage," "reconstructive surgery." Andie looks up from her perch on the stool, but Daddy is in the middle of a stitch. His eyes are on the wicked curved needle sliding through Mal's skin. Ordinarily he'd have his apprentice Rebecca here to assist, but she's visiting her folks, so there's only Andie to pass him what he needs and clean up as he goes. She knows just enough to hand him the right thing when he asks for a dermal mender, and not much more. Zoe seems to understand about half of what's said, but the state of her friend's large intestine is not really what she's asking about. "He gonna be all right, Doc?" The question softens the cold, clinical crease between his eyebrows. "There's a lot that could go wrong still," he tells Zoe gently. She nods, relaxes her grip on her belt loops, and pulls up a stool opposite Andie's. "But I think between the two of us," Daddy says, trying for levity, "Mal and I know all there is to know about recovering from gunshot wounds." Andie squeezes Mal's limp hand, as she's been doing periodically since her daddy doped him senseless two and a half hours ago. "Have you been able to reach Inara?" she asks Zoe. "She knows. She and Ben are on their way here." "And you found Kaylee and Mariel? Kaylee knows Bertani's crew is in town?" Daddy says, looking up at last. "Yeah. She's at the shop still, keepin' the kittiwake out of the way and waitin' for the bastards to clear out." Andie's unsurprised but a little indignant to hear Zoe use that pet name. "Kittiwake" is Mal's term of endearment, and doesn't sound right comin' from anyone else. And yet everyone likes it so much, it's started to pass into general usage. At least they don't call Andie "mollymawk," if only because she made such a fuss. A fuss like the one burning the back of her throat right now. "Why doesn't anyone tell the sheriff?" Andie says. It galls her that no one seems to want to do anything on this score. "Why should Mama have to hide?" There follows a long, heavy silence while both adults avoid her eyes and her dad finishes closing the wound. "Better that the law keeps its distance, Andie," Zoe says at last. "Mal killed a man. I think they frown on that." "But he tried to--tried to--" The words he tried to shoot me are too unreal. "Said he was gonna kill Uncle Mal. Surely they'll--" "There's no telling what they'll make of it. Better they don't have to try." "It's not like they won't notice a guy with his face bashed in," Andie practically snarls. "It won't just go away if we ignore it." Daddy looks up, not with reproach for her tone, but with compassion. He's wishing hard that the past few hours hadn't happened. "You need to trust us, sweetie. We're not ignoring anything." "Culloden sees its share of bar brawls gone awry, and Bertani never had an overabundance of friends," Zoe says pragmatically. "This'll pass. We don't need people askin' around as to why Mr. Reynolds has got himself such lowdown enemies." "But you've all been dealin' on the level for years--" "Andie. You need to be quiet and let me work, or you need to leave the room." Daddy is so rarely sharp with her these days that she feels it like a slap. Leaving in tears is an attractive option, but letting go of Uncle Mal feels traitorous when he so recently stood between her and a loaded pistol. So she just sits and keeps her mouth shut, partly because if she says anything else, her voice will crack and give her away. This--this world of guns and blood and people who'd honestly prefer you dead--is in no way familiar territory. From the set of Daddy and Zoe's expressions, she can guess it was never meant to be. "Done," Daddy says, stepping back from the table and binning his bloodstained gloves. "There's not much more I can do now but wait and see if he pulls through." He ventures a strange, crystalline glance up at Zoe. Something passes between them, something tired and worn and familiar. Daddy comes around the table to Andie's side, folds her into his arms. She lets him, stretching to keep a hold of Mal's hand. She wishes her own wouldn't shake so.

* * *

When Inara and Ben arrive half an hour later, Andie is still holding onto Mal like he might somehow pull her out of all this. Ben lingers in the doorway, but Aunt Inara hurries over, strokes her husband's hair, and kisses his forehead softly. She reaches for Andie too, but Andie shies away. Uncle Mal got shot stepping in front of her. She's not sure if Aunt 'Nara knows that yet. Daddy describes Mal's condition in detail for Inara, who understands more of the "doctor gibberish" than Zoe did. "He's not out of the woods yet," Andie hears him say. Ben comes to the table more slowly, moving through a fog of medication for that head cold he's got. For awhile he just stares at his dad, grey and bruised under the lights. As a small boy, Ben was afraid of this room, with all its needles and sutures and instruments. When Daddy's voice dies away, Ben's eyes stray to Andie. He tugs gently at her elbow. "Let's get you cleaned up." In the back of her mind she knows that he just wants something to do other than stand here uselessly, but the thought doesn't move her. "I want to stay here." "Please, Andie," he says, all hoarse and congested. He disentangles her fingers from his father's. Daddy and Inara look up sharply at the sticky noise of bloody palms ungluing. Andie allows herself to be led out of the blue sterility of the operating room, down the cool white hallway, and up the stairs to her own living room. There she stalls, suddenly conscious that she'll ruin the rug if she keeps going. The soles of her sneakers have already left red stamps on every step. "My shoes," she murmurs. Ben looks down, and his eyes follow the trail she's left. Then he lifts her up, rag-doll limp, as though she were five. "Ben, I'm sorry," she whispers when her feet touch the tile floor of the bathroom. "I should'a kept my mouth shut, but this man had a gun on him, and--" "Shh. Ain't your fault." He replaces a sleek length of hair behind her ear. "Enough of the crazy talk." He fills the pedestal sink with warm water and pulls down Mama's pink loofah from the rack in the bath. He watches from the rim of the tub while Andie sponges clean her hands and arms. "I'm still sorry," she whispers. "You did good, you know, getting him here. You saved his life." Andie has nothing to say to that, because Mal saved his own life. She just held the steering wheel for a while. Ben steps out of the room while she wriggles out of her shirt and unhooks her bra. Both garments are darkening to that distinctive purple-brown in places. She shivers at the air's cool touch, regards her clothes warily, and tosses them in the sink. Ben slips her a pair of soft cotton pajamas through the cracked door and she shimmies into them gratefully. "You don't have to mother me, you know," Andie tells him through the door, just to be sure it goes on record. In truth, she doesn't mind being walked through the motions for a little while longer. "I'm not hurt or anything." "Bi zui," he tells her gently. "Get dressed." Five minutes later, they sit Indian style on her bed, he at the foot and she propped up against the headboard. She's got origami paper to busy her hands, but her thoughts won't focus. The sound of Bertani's nose breaking is too loud in her head. She looks up at Ben, hoping for a distraction. "How much do you know about our parents when they were still living vesselside?" she says quietly, twisting the paper into a colorful mess. There is a pause long enough that she feels like she needs to justify herself. "I know their cargo wasn't always entirely legal, and that they got into some scrapes, but... a twenty-year grudge?" Ben looks up, and suddenly it is Uncle Mal staring across at her, expression guarded and thoughtful. She almost flinches. It's the eyes, she thinks irritably. Same pair of eyes in two heads, though Ben's curls should be more than enough to differentiate them. At any rate, Ben's voice brings his softer features back into focus; at least he doesn't sound like his dad. "I know the odd story that they tell around the dinner table. Stuff like your mom brewin' her own moonshine with the engine--same stuff you've heard yourself. Prob'ly nothin' likely to answer your question." "You sure, Ben?" He shrugs uncomfortably. "I asked about it on more'n one occasion, but--well, you try an' interrogate either of my folks. See where it gets you." "Mucking out stalls for a month straight?" Andie tries. "No, that was for, uh, borrowin' the mule. Without permission. Or much of an idea how to drive." She knows he's trying to make her laugh, and it works anyway. "That one's filed under 'Oops.'" But the laughter dies quickly, replaced by a staring silence. Andie can't stand anything that gives her time to think. "How's your earache?" "Hurts like a bitch." "You want somethin' for it?" "Mom already shoved half a bottle of pills down my throat." "Oh." More silence. Something starts echoing in Andie's head. It's that horrible, strangled groan Uncle Mal made when she tried to throw her arms around him. "Please. Talk." It's horribly unfair to lean on him like this. It's not her father lying gutshot on a table downstairs, is it? Ben's eyes burn blue in his tanned face, and for a moment Andie thinks he'll tell her where to get off. Then he says, "Did you ever hear about the time my dad accidentally got married?" "No." "Well, it was on this bass-ackwards moon called Triumph, not too long after your dad and Aunt River came on board Serenity." Ben's voice is slow and soothing, and if he tries real hard he can turn it to velvet like his mother does. Not tonight, not with a cold, but the rhythm alone is a rocking hammock to her heavy head. He does as she asked--just talks--even when she lays her head down next to his knee and cries silently. In time, she sleeps.