Firefly, Serenity, and all related proprietary characters are the intellectual property of Joss Whedon and corporations with whom I have no affiliation. Said property does not belong to me, and the fictional story below is of my own creation. (I don’t own ‘em, just like to play with ‘em!) **************** River woke up in a daze, fearful and crying. Straining to shut her eyes and avoid the bright light, she tried to move her arms without success. She quickly realized they were tied, not to a table, but behind her back. Her legs were also restrained, and her torso was also bound. After a few seconds, she realized she must be in a chair in Serenity’s kitchen. Searching with her mind, River quickly discovered everyone was in very close proximity and quite upset. She tried without much success to calm down, but after a moment the tears began to subside. “Why is everyone so angry? And who used her safe word? It hurts! Burns her mind, and the hands of blue can chase her for hours, and she can’t stop them, and they won’t leave her alone!” River cautiously opened her eyes, still trembling in fear.

“Hurts, huh? You don’t have any idea why everyone is upset?” Mal’s voice was icy calm, the one River recognized as his ‘I am seriously pissed off’ voice. “Maybehaps it has something to do with being confined to their bunks for no reason. There better be a gorram good explanation for this, or you will not appreciate the repercussions.”

River’s eyes went wide. “But she had to! She tried to think of other plans, but it wasn’t working. She’s sorry, it’s important, and she thought everyone would figure it out and understand. Please, let her explain, she’ll try to make it clearer. She’ll do whatever you want, but don’t use her safe-word again! Please please don’t! It hurts sooooooo much, and she can’t make it stop!” River looked around the room, verging on hysterical. She was sitting at the head of the table. Mal must have been behind her. Simon was sitting on one side, Inara on the other. Zoë and Jayne were leaning against the wall at the other end of the table. River couldn’t see Kaylee, but she assumed she was standing next to Mal. No one was smiling, and no one looked like they would help her.

Gorramit, she looks as bad as she did on Lilac, maybe worse… “Don’t think you’re in any position to be making requests, River, but so long as you behave yourself, maybe we don’t need to use it. Now what do you have to say for yourself? And keep it simple, Captain-dummy-talk, so’s we can all follow along.”

Uh-oh, chuán zhăng must really be mad… not “li’l Albatross” or “nī zi”, but my name. This is not going to end well… “Well, ummm… it was important… we’re all supposed to be a family, right?” River looked around the table, but no one responded. “We are supposed to be a family, we have to be, or the hands of blue will break us apart. It’s what they do best, picking things apart, looking at the pieces, seeing if they fit together different ways. But they don’t understand, we only fit one way.”

River glanced around again, but saw no changes. “She’s trying to be clear, she really is. But we’re not really a family because all families have little families. So she tried to fix it. It took forever to figure it out. She tried to get chuán zhăng and piào liang fū ren to talk to each other and get over the stupid fight they’ve been having for the last six months. She tried to get gē ge to stop being a boob and ask jiě jie to marry him. And she tried to think of a way to make nǚ zhàn shì happy. But nothing was working, so she decided to lock everyone in their bunk, with their partner where applicable, and let them sort it out on their own, but that didn’t work either. Then she thought maybe she was doing it backwards. Can’t make them pay attention long enough to make children to form a family, so she needed to give them children so they’d have to pay attention and make it a family. So she switched the birth control injections with water so they wouldn’t work. That way piào liang fū ren and jiě jie would have children, so chuán zhăng and gē ge would come to their senses and marry them. The last part she wasn’t sure about, because ‘little man’ would be mad at her, probably ‘preacher man’ too, but it made sense because it fit. Had to make it fit or nǚ zhàn shì would be all alone, not part of the family. She took some of ‘little man’s’ genetic material before he was buried, and saved it in a cryo-unit. Then when nǚ zhàn shì went to sleep last night, she gave her a smoother, and made her pregnant. She let you all out of your bunks because she can feel the children now, all three of them.”

River looked around the table a third time, but this time it was different. Everyone’s faces were the same now, all wide-eyed and confused, and staring at her. “She messed up though, didn’t she? She can’t see it, but she can feel it! So much anger, she understands, but she doesn’t comprehend. Réncí de Fózǔ, she ruined everything!” River began crying again, harder this time than when she woke up.

Everyone else in the room was silent for a few minutes. Finally Jayne’s curiosity got the better of him. “Why’d ya lock me up for, xiăo hè? I ain’t part of this crazy-ass family idea of yer’s! Or at least ya didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout it.”

River looked up at Jayne, still crying. “She thought you might try to let everyone out. Didn’t know what else to do. But you are part of the family, she thought when you saw all the other women pregnant, you might understand it better. She’s been trying to get you to give her a chance for almost two weeks! She loves you, and she wanted you to see the woman and not the weapon, maybe even love her back! Not a little girl anymore, not “moon-brain” or “li’l witch” anymore! Still broken, but not as many little pieces, glued back together now, and she can control the weapon on the inside!” River sighed and tilted her head backwards to look up at Mal standing above her, then back upright to stare off towards the cargo bay. “Doesn’t matter now though, have to restore order, get rid of the troublemaker. She’s seen that look before from the chuán zhăng, he’s just trying to decide between the airlock and a bullet in the brainpan.”

Everyone save River, who continued staring towards the cargo bay, stood up looking at Mal, and then they all started yelling at once, except River who was barely audible through her tears.

(I) Mal, you cannot be serious, you are not going to kill her!

(S) She’s my sister, you can’t, or you’ll have to kill me too!

(K) No, sweetie, he’s not going to kill you! Right, Cap’n?

(Z) Sir, I’ll back you up, but shouldn’t we talk about this?

(J) Mal, she said she loves me, ain’t no woman never said that before!

(R) She’d much prefer the bullet if you can’t decide.

“Bì zuǐ! Everyone calm the hell down and bì zuǐ! Nobody’s going to kill you, River. Now everyone shut their mouths, and you stop that crying, ‘cause I need quiet to think a minute.” Everyone, including River, immediately went silent and into their seats. Mal paced about the kitchen for almost five minutes before he came back to the table. Mal sat down rather forcefully, then stared at River. “Young lady, we have a very serious problem here. Just because–”

Inara recognized Mal was still highly agitated, and decided to intervene. “Mal, hold on a minute. Before we figure out how we are going to fix this, or what’s going to happen to River, shouldn’t we explain to her what exactly she did wrong, and why it was wrong?”

Mal glared at Inara. “What is there to fix? As ridiculous as her idea about making a family is, she isn’t wrong about the babies. Hell, I’m scared to gŏu shĭ by this development, but we have capable adults on this boat, can’t be that hard to raise kids. Can’t rightly speak for Zoë or Kaylee, but ‘less there’s a medical reason you can’t have my kid, I’m gonna be a father in nine months. Everybody knows contraceptives ain’t perfect, and the only way to guarantee you ain’t gonna end up a parent is never touchin’ another person of the opposite sex. So it’s a risk we take, a small one, but still a risk. So same as if River hadn’t tampered with anything, and somethin’ still got messed up, I ain’t about to end a life before it even gets a chance. Have to be a man and own up to my responsibilities.” Mal paused for a moment to catch his breath, trying to remember what he was going to say before Inara had interrupted him. “But getting back on topic, why’d you interrupt me? Seems pretty straight-forward, you can’t be messin’ with someone else’s medicine unless you’re a doctor and they say it’s ok. And you can’t be locking everyone in their bunks without so much as a ‘by your leave,’ just because you think you had a brilliant idea. What’s so hard to understand?”

Inara sighed. “Mal, she might be an intellectual genius, but she clearly doesn’t understand all of the ‘Verse’s social rules or why we have them. Were you listening to what she said? All she knows is that she did something wrong, but she can’t read us, she’s just going off of our emotions. She doesn’t understand why it was wrong, she wasn’t being malicious. And Réncí de Fózǔ, can we please untie her? River isn’t going to hurt us.”

Mal walked around in front of River, taking Kaylee’s hand and forcing her to sit next to Simon. Walking back behind River, he loosened the ropes holding her to the chair, then proceeded to sit down next to Inara, and motioned to Jayne and Zoë to take seats as well. “There, she’s untied, go ahead and explain if you think she don’t understand.”

Inara glared at the captain. “This might have been avoided if we had told her what we decided right away, but you said there was no rush. So do not talk to me as though you are the almighty lord and savior of this ship unless you are willing to take responsibility for that considerable lapse in judgment.” That seemed to shut Mal up, but brought questioning looks from everyone else. “River asked me a few days ago if Mal and I would adopt her as our daughter, act as her surrogate parents. The morning before this all started, the two of us agreed that it would be in River’s best interests, and we were planning to tell everyone later that day.” Turning to face the teen, Inara’s face was the definition of disappointment, although exactly who she was most disappointed in was up for debate. “This incident has made it clear to me that not only do you need Mal and I for parents, but that this should have occurred months ago, in spite of whatever difficulties Mal and I had in our personal relationship. So for that error, I must apologize, but that does not excuse your actions entirely.”

River nodded in agreement. “She understands. Her choices, her responsibility for the results.” The teen’s voice quaked despite her best efforts.

“River, the ability for each person to make their own choices is what makes people free. Whether the choice is something basic, like what to do with free time, or complex, like deciding whether or not to cultivate a relationship with another person, or whether or not you wish to have children, the important thing is that the person must be able to decide for themselves and not have someone else decide for them.” Inara looked to Zoë and Kaylee for a moment before continuing. “You have taken a choice away from each of the other women on this ship, one which some people believe to be the most sacred of all. Bringing another life into the world is a weighty responsibility, and it usually lasts at least twenty years, if not more. Can you imagine if someone told you that you had to spend the next twenty years of your life following orders without question, and there was nothing you could do about it?”

River suddenly looked frantic. “She did not think of that. Has she done this to all of you, turned her friends into slaves?” Nervously wringing her hands over and over, the teen looked around the room, but no one would return her gaze except Inara. “She is sorry! This was not her intention at all!”

Inara grabbed River’s hands to get her attention. “River, just listen to me. We know you didn’t understand, which is why I am trying to explain it to you.” This got the teen to shut up, now focused intently on her prospective mother. “Everyone make mistakes, but what makes a good person is being able to recognize their mistakes, attempting to make up for them, and not repeating them in the future. Tell me, bǎo bèi, what mistake you have made, how are you going to make up for it, and how you will avoid it in the future.”

River looked straight down at her feet, unable to look at the friends she had wronged. “She made decisions for other people that were not hers to make. She will do whatever they want in compensation. She will not make such decisions again.”

“Bǎo bèi, you need to look at people when you are speaking to them. I know it is difficult to break old habits, but no rú nǚ ér zhĕ of mine should ever be accused of poor manners.” River immediately picked her head up and Inara smiled a little. “Better. Now I think it would be helpful for you if some of us told you, calmly, how they feel about the last two days and why they feel that way. Jayne, why don’t you start?”

Jayne fidgeted a bit in his chair. “Well… I guess I’m kinda sad. Ain’t no use bein’ mad, ‘cause that ain’t gonna help. But if ya thought somethin’ was wrong, why not just say somethin’? Or ask for advice? Not that two days stuck in my bunk was all that shiny, but I’m kinda disappointed ya don’t trust me ‘nough to ask for help, even if ya do love me.”

“She does trust you, but you are unpredictable.” River bit her lip as she looked across the table at the mercenary. “Did not think you would be in favor of having children on Serenity. Not right now at least. Did not think you wanted a reminder of your past.”

She ain’t wrong. I don’t want a bunch of rugrats runnin’ ‘bout, gettin’ into everything… but it’d be somethin’ to replace the past, not a reminder. Jayne chewed on the tip of his thumb for a moment before responding. “Ain’t gonna be a reminder. Mal an’ ‘Nara, yer brother an’ Kaylee, Zoë… they’re all gonna be loads better parents ‘n what you an’ me had. Things ‘ll work out, more like than not, an’ it’d be kinda nice, us all bein’ a big family. I miss that sometimes.”

Inara’s smile widened just a bit. “Good, Jayne. I am glad that you are trying to be optimistic. I think we all realize that River did mean well, but mistakes do happen. Now Simon, do you have anything you want to say to your sister?”

The young doctor only stared at the teen for almost two minutes before he spoke. “I cannot begin to explain how angry I am right now. But you are my mèi mei, so I am finding it difficult to decide what exactly I would want to happen. Some part of me wants to put you in your bunk and leave it locked for a month, but that wouldn’t teach you anything except not to anger me.”

“Simon, let’s remember to be calm.” Inara’s intervention came with a glare from across the table that was anything but. “We are not judging River, simply trying to help her.”

Simon pushed back his chair with a sigh, getting up to walk around the room. Stopping for a moment, he caught Mal’s eyes. “Is this my fault? Is this what you meant?” His tone was completely neutral, making it difficult to discern his purpose in addressing the captain.

Mal raised an eyebrow in disapproval. “Doc, I ain’t pointin’ fingers. Completely unproductive an’ liable to make a difficult situation worse. You got anythin’ else ya want to say to yer sister?” A shake of Simon’s head as he slumped back into his chair was the only response Mal received. “Zoë, you’ve been awful quiet. Figure if anyone’s got a right to be upset, you’re top of the list. You got somethin’ to say to River?”

Zoë got up from her seat and walked around the table, stopping in front of the teen and staring down with cold eyes. She simply stood there for almost a minute, and suddenly she grabbed River by the arm and pulled her to a standing position. “I want to hate you, hurt you, make you sorry you ever existed. But I can’t… you’ve given me something no one else in the ‘verse could. Don’t think for a second that I ain’t angry ‘bout how it came to be, an’ some day I expect I’ll wanna talk about it. But that won’t be today, and end of the day, you’re still on the good side of the ledger with me an’ likely to stay there.” The first mate’s voice was ripe with emotion, and as she let go of River’s arm, she pulled the teen into a strong embrace, both crying softly.

When the pair finally separated, Inara looked over to Kaylee, but the mechanic shook her head. Taking River by the shoulders, Inara turned the teen to look at her. “Do you understand now, River? Do you know what you have to do?”

River nodded her head, but her eyes were brimming with tears. “She owes you all an apology. She’s very sorry, and she knows she doesn’t deserve it, but she hopes you can forgive her some day. Can she be excused to go start packing her things, chuán zhăng?” **************** Academy Facility, OSIRIS

“Sampson?” The second daily roll call outside the lunch room seemed endless as the Alliance solider read the names.

“Present.” Seventeen year old Jane Alistair Sampson raised her hand and waited for the solider to acknowledge her. The process was the same every meal of every day. Wait for your name to be called, raise your hand, catch the meal card they throw, bring the card to the desk of the lunch room to get in, eat, and return to your room. The monotony was only minimized by the variance in the food served and being allowed to speak freely with friends, if one had any. Jane nimbly caught the meal card between her fingertips as it was tossed to her, but she stayed in her place. For Jane, it was ritual to wait for her best friend and roommate to get her own card before the pair would proceed together.

“Seward?” A younger boy with whom Jane was not personally acquainted, but knew by reputation, took his turn. Then it was her friend’s turn. “Simpson?”

“Here.” Eighteen year old Jessica Anne Simpson rolled her eyes as she caught the projectile and turned to Jane. “This process is inefficient. There are at least six hundred and eighteen ways it could be improved, and that’s only what I thought of while I was waiting today.”

Jane smirked as the pair wandered over to the desk. “Simple plans are necessary when implementation is carried out by employees better suited to sanitation work.” Handing over their cards, both girls were granted entrance to the food line. After a few minutes, they reached the front and were handed prepared trays. As the pair made their way across the large cafeteria-style room, the sterility of the scene served as reminder of where they were. The walls were unadorned metal, bare plastic tables bolted to the floor with attached benches. A year ago, they had been permitted individual chairs, but a poorly thought out attempt at a riot, in which said chairs were turned into makeshift weapons, led to their removal.

Taking a seat in the far corner of the room, as was her custom, Jessica removed the cover from the tray to discover the day’s lunch would consist of a soup and sandwich, accompanied by a juice box and an apple. “Another tremendous disappointment. One would think that students would discover the direct corollary between misbehavior and less satisfactory food at mealtimes after the first three riots in a month. None of which had any hope of success, and thus no purpose other than to irritate the overseers.” Sulking as she set the cover under her seat, Jessica slowly began to eat the soup.

“It is well established that neither of us is likely to leave this place alive of our free will. But the masses need hope, or they will slowly perish.” Jane had unhappily found the sandwich to be processed protein, rather than some type of meat or jelly. “However the prospect of continued poor meals does cause irritation, not having had anything to do with the causation.”

Jessica would have had a response to that, but she was interrupted by the arrival of one of their other regular lunch partners. Timothy Jessup and Evan Parks were roughly the same age as the girls, and the four religiously took the same four person table whenever it was available. So when Timothy sat down without Evan, it caught both girls’ attentions. “Tim, where is Evan?” Jessica had learned quickly after a few months in the Academy that no one watches out for anyone else, unless it was their friend, and loners were often targeted, both for pranks by students and extra attention from the overseers. Neither was good, so Jessica had promised herself that she would make sure to keep track of anyone she deemed friendly.

“Bathroom.” Tim’s response was typically nonchalant. Rolling his eyes at the food on the girls’ trays, he deposited the cover from his own under the bench. “Someone needs to inform the malcontents that their bad behavior is causing the overseers to punish everyone.” Disappointed by the lunch selection, Tim studied the sandwich for a moment before starting on his soup. “If we are going to be trapped here in a metaphorical Paradise Lost, at least we should be able to avoid further aggravating our suffering.”

“And here I thought you were a student of Dante, Tim.” Evan had caught the tail end of Tim’s last thought as he ventured over to the table and taken the last seat. “Good afternoon, Jessica, Jane.”

Jane raised an eyebrow as she looked up from her food. “The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost are not wholly inconsistent with each other. Tim’s reference is valid.”

Jessica finished her soup and glanced around the room to check for any nearby overseers. Finding none, she lowered her voice to a whisper as a precaution. “After lunch, outside on the back lawn?” Students were supposed to return to their rooms after lunch time to study before afternoon classes, but the group had taken to sneaking outside instead a few times a week. They couldn’t really do anything, certainly not escape, but they found the break refreshing, and their own private rebellion. Getting a nod from all three of her friends, Jessica smiled as she started on her apple.

A few minutes later, all four had finished eating, and by various forms of subterfuge, managed to evade any overseers who would have forced them back to their rooms to arrive on the back lawn behind the cafeteria. As the group reconstituted, there was a sudden explosion overhead. Jane was the first to recover her senses enough to look up. “Réncí de Fózǔ, look at those!” Above the facility were three large ships, easily the size of Alliance cruisers.

“Hide! The enemy of our enemy might not be our friend!” Evan had grown up on the Rim, and he had seen similar ships before. In his experience, they belonged exclusively to slavers.

Unfortunately there was no cover to be had except a line of shrubbery against the wall of the building that covered the exhaust vents. Jessica knew that beggars could not be choosers though. “In the shrubs, let’s go!”

The four sprinted the twenty some yards to the plants and dove in among them. It was horrifically hot from the steam coming out of the vents, but it seemed a better alternative than standing in the open. A moment later, their choice was validated as the ground was swarming with men carrying rifles. From their vantage point, the teens could not see much, but if they had been on the front side of the building, they would have wished they weren’t. The armed guards of the facility came storming out onto the main lawn, but they were woefully overwhelmed by the sheer number of the attackers. Every other student was stuck inside the cafeteria, save a few in their rooms, the infirmary, or the restrooms. When it became clear that the assault would not be held back, the overseers did something they never thought would be necessary, but that the Director had insisted on being an available option. After staff finished gathering the few who were not already in the cafeteria, the overseers ordered the room locked down before delivering a massive aerosol dose of Paxillon through the air filters. With defeat nearly certain, the Academy could not afford to allow its students out into the world.

Unfortunately for Jessica, Jane, Tim, and Evan, the vents began to seep small amounts of Paxillon. At such close range, none of them realized what was happening before they fell unconscious.

Meanwhile, inside one of the inner offices of the facility, thirteen of the overseers watched the events unfold on closed circuit cameras. The office they occupied was absolutely impenetrable, and they knew they would survive the assault barring the use of a nuclear weapon. “This is incredibly disappointing.” The leader of the group watched as the cameras spanned over the lunch room, revealing a floor littered with corpses. “The students could not possibly survive such a high dose of Paxillon delivered in those conditions, correct?”

One of the others shook his head. “Any still maintaining lung function at this point will be breathing in so much of the chemical as to cause brain death within minutes.”

The leader spat on the floor in disgust. “A waste. Why was there no warning? No air support? The protection of this facility is supposed to be of priority equivalent with Parliament.” No one had an answer so the room remained silent. “Will there be any survivors outside of those in this office?”

Another studied the various monitors in front of him. “It appears all of the other staff have been neutralized, including the Director and all of our brethren.” A moment later, he confirmed his statement as the only moving bodies inside the entire facility were those of the invaders. What was unseen was the removal of the bodies of four students to one of the ships, as the invaders had set fire to every building, and the thick smoke obscured the view of the cameras. “The destruction of all records outside of this room’s archives was initiated by the Director seconds before his death.”

The lead overseer permitted himself a wry smile. “At least the precautions he insisted on have been of use, even if he was a major irritant.” As he walked over to his place at the head of the table, where he typically held meetings of this select group of his most trusted brethren, he sat back in his chair. “For now, we wait. The continuation of program must not be placed at risk by being overly ambitious.” Closing his eyes, he brought his arms behind his head and interlaced the fingers of his blue-glove-adorned hands in relaxation. **************** HOURS LATER

Jessica woke to find herself in an unfamiliar room, lying on a bed and facing a metal wall. Turning over, she found Jane at her side, and their friends Evan and Timothy next to her. The bed was enormous, nearly triple the size of the one in her room. As she gazed around the room, she knew they were no longer at the Academy, but beyond that, she could determine nothing. The room was well furnished, and if she had to guess, she might have thought they were somewhere in the Core. Getting to her feet, she walked to the door of the room and moved to open it. But when her hand touched the handle, she was jolted with electricity. Not enough to kill, but certainly a significant hindrance. Rushing back to the bed, she hurriedly shook her friends, begging them to wake up.

Evan was the first to wake. “Where are we?”

Jessica spared him a look as she tried to rouse Jane and Timothy. “No idea. Obviously not the Academy, but when I tried to open the door, I was subjected to a significant electrical shock. We need to wake the others.”

No sooner had she finished speaking did Jane yawn, stretching out her arms. “Nice bed.” Her eyes still closed, she was only just beginning to wake, still not fully coherent.

Jessica shook her friend a little more violently. “Jane, you need to wake up. We are no longer at the Academy, but we cannot leave this room. We need to determine a strategy.”

“Two points for Captain Obvious.” Timothy rolled over, seemingly nonplussed at being woken. “If we cannot leave, I suspect there is little we can do until the person or people who have detained us decide to further inform us.” Pushing himself to a sitting position against the headboard, the young boy glanced around the room. “If we assume that we have been taken by the individuals who attacked the Academy, we must also assume that whoever they work for deemed we should not be harmed at this point. They are highly likely to know what we are, so they would be foolish to allow us free reign of their ship. But to this point, it would appear they are attempting to cultivate some form of trust, based upon the room we have been placed in. So in my opinion, we should simply wait until someone attempts to communicate with us, then re-evaluate our options.”

The other three teens nodded in agreement. Short on information and temporarily restrained to a room, albeit nicely furnished, at an unknown location, there was really no other choice. **************** gē ge – brother (older); jiě jie – sister (older); mèi mei – sister (younger)

piào liang fū ren – pretty lady; chuán zhăng – captain

nǚ zhàn shì – female warrior; hù wèi zhĕ – bodyguard

bǎo bèi – precious; nī zi – little girl; xiăo hè – little lotus

mŭ qīn – mother; fù qīn – father; rú nǚ ér zhĕ – daughter

Qĭng jìn lái – Please come in; xiàng zhū yī yàng yú chŭn – stupid jackass

Dŏng ma? – understand?; gŏu shĭ – shit; wŏ de pì gu – my ass

pō fù – bitch; fēng kuáng dì – crazy; bèn lǘ wú zhī – stupid-ass ignorant

mă shàng – now; Nĭ míng bai wŏ ma? – Do you understand me?

Shén shèng dì pái xiè wù – Holy excrement; Wŏ de mā! – My god! (lit. My mother!); Réncí de Fózǔ – Merciful Buddha