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Author's Note: This story contains mature themes, including sexual violence. Proceed with caution.

Lex Talionis
by Tara O'Shea

Epilogue

Inara waited just inside the atrium as Wash neatly set shuttle two down alongside hers in the landing pad on the side of the house. When the shuttle hatch opened, she was holding her breath even though she had already gotten a cortex transmission letting her know they were on their way.

Mal came out first, and she didn't care who was watching or what they would think as she ran out and threw her arms around him. There was a butterfly weave above his eye, but he was smiling as he returned her embrace.

"Hey—when do I get my hug?" Jayne leered over Mal's shoulder.

"I'll hug you," Wash said as he and Zoe stepped out of the shuttle, Book on their heels.

"That ain't the same at all. You ain't got tits."

"Your powers of observation continue to astound me."

"How's Kaylee?" Zoe asked as Simon and River joined them.

"She's doing okay," Simon said cautiously, stealing a glance at Mal. "She's awake and alert, and ate something this morning."

"They brought a bathtub," River said excitedly. "Right into her room. It was big enough to drown in!"

Everyone stared at her.

"And she had a bath," Simon added as they all began to file inside.

Mal hung back and waited until the crew's voices were swallowed by the house before he turned to Inara, a hand on her arm to keep her in the cool stone hallway where no one else could hear them.

"How's she, really?" he asked, hand still on her arm.

"Simon and Dr. Wynn ran a battery of tests—they all came up neg for STDs or pregnancy," Inara said quietly. "She was shocky most of yesterday, and Simon told me she told him about the attack and then cried herself out. She was worried, afraid Niska would kill you. Talia gave her a smoother, and she slept through the night."

She saw something change in his face, but it was too quick for her to be certain what it was.

He took a deep breath. "So what do we do?"

"Survive," Inara said simply. "After something like this, the only power anyone has over you is whatever power you give them. The only way to get through it is to survive, go on—not let them take anything else away from you. You survive, and you live, and love, and you go on. Just to spite them."

"Damned easy thing to say," he said, his gaze far away, "and something else all together in practice."

"Then we'll all just have to start practising," Inara said gently.

Mal's only reaction was a terse nod. "We'd best catch up to Jayne, before he gets an eyeful of your friend Radha's girls and starts to get ideas."

"Hey, little Kaylee," Mal said softly as he knocked on the open door of her room.

She smiled when she saw him, and he felt something in his chest tighten.

Her hair was still damp from her bath, and she wore a red and gold embroidered robe that was tucked close around her all the way up to her neck. Her face and jaw were still bruised, but the swelling had gone down, and there were fresh bandages on the cuts and a fancy new splint on her broken fingers.

"Heya, Cap'n," she said, and he came the rest of the way into the room, shutting the door behind him. She patted the bed, and he took the hint, sitting down beside her. She struggled to sit up, and he helped her get comfortable against the mound of pillows.

"Simon told me you went after Niska—" she began.

"He's dead," Mal said without preamble. "Him and about fifteen of his boys are food for the buzzards about now. He ain't never gonna hurt nobody ever again. Not you, not nobody."

She blinked rapidly, fretting with the edge of the coverlet. "And nobody was hurt?"

"Not more than a bit," he said, shaking his head. "They're all waiting to come and see you—if you want the company."

She glanced at the door, chewing on her bottom lip. "Maybe in a while?"

"Fair 'nough."

She reached up, ran fingertips alongside his bruised jaw. "You get that in the fight?"

"Your boyfriend sucker-punched me." Mal grinned. "Doc's toughened up some, last few months."

Her eyes narrowed shrewdly. "He said you let him hit you."

"Ai-ya, well, I only let him think that," he said airily, and was rewarded with another halting smile. "Pretty lady doctor told me they plan to keep you a spell."

"Simon says I should be up on crutches in a few weeks. They gave me some fancy medicine s'posed to make bones mend quicker."

He smiled and took her hand, giving her fingers a quick squeeze.

"I've been thinking... Zephyr is only two days out from Bernadette. Once you're on the mend, we could—"

"You don't want me on Serenity?" she asked, guessing where he was headed before he even got there, her voice almost a whisper. "You want me to leave?"

"No, no, mèimei, that ain't it at all—" he said quickly.

"It's because I can't take care of myself, isn't it." Her eyes filled with helpless tears. "'Cause I can't shoot like Zoe, or even River—"

"Mèimei, you shouldn't have to," he said firmly. "You shouldn't never have had to. I hired you on as my mechanic, not muscle. You ain't Zoe or Jayne—and I don't expect you to be. Don't you ever think that."

"Then why do you want to send me away? You said I had a job long as I can keep her in the air—"

"I don't want to, little Kaylee—but you got hurt because of me. What happened, happened because Niska wanted to get to me. I can't let that ever happen again—"

"But he's dead!"

"That don't change the fact that anybody has got a beef with me, could go after the lot of you."

Her pain and confusion was writ large across her expressive face, and it made him feel lower than dogshit, but he was determined to stand fast.

"Cap'n—you take care of us. You're always lookin' after us."

"But I didn't this time. I let you get hurt."

"Weren't you that did this to me," she snapped, desperation turning quickly to anger. "I chose to take up arms against Niska, after he snatched you and Wash. Me. I chose, because you woulda done the same for any of us. You would have in a second."

"This ain't about that—"

"I ain't some blind little flit of a prairie harpy, don't know weak tea from boiling water, dong ma? Maybe I can't make much of myself with the shootin' and all—but I am good at my job. And not just the mechanic'ing parts, neither. I got a gift for crime. You said it your own self, more'n once."

"You have all sorts of romantic notions about smuggling—"

"—and don't you think the last three years have cured me of a bunch of those?" she shot back. "Don't you think, as I lay there after Dobson shot me, that I wasn't scared half to death? I got gutshot, Mal. Woulda died, if Simon hadn't patched me up."

"That gôushî bùrú Fed wouldn't have even been there to take pot shots at you, I hadn't—"

"But he was there. And it did happen. Hell, a million things could go wrong, any day of the week. With the engine, with a job—if Zoe hadn't shoved me out of the way when the compression coil blew, that woulda been the end of me right there. I knew that when I signed on. You don't get to make that choice for me."

"Don't I?"

"No. You don't. If I was too scared, I woulda walked after Early."

"Maybe, if you had some sense, you woulda—"

"Then I ain't got no sense!" she exploded, colour flooding her cheeks. "And you know what? Neither do you, mister! You're always going on about how you're a mean old man, but look at how you took Simon and River in, what with the Feds after them and all. And Book too, even though he ain't paid his fare in eight months or more. You're always goin' on about it's your boat, and you make all the decisions and only your say counts—but it don't, Mal. This ain't just a job. It's a family. Always has been. So, you telling me I ain't got no say in staying with my family?"

"My mind's made up, xiâo mèimei."

"Well mine ain't." Tears of frustration shone in her eyes. "Don't that count for anything?"

"It's for your own good," he said, a muscle in his jaw twitching.

"Gôu pì my own good!" she said, her voice rising again, an edge of hysteria in it. "You feel guilty, and you feel responsible. And maybe you want me to blame you—since you're so dead set on blaming yourself."

"You should! It's my fault!" Mal shouted back at her and then froze, surprised at his own outburst.

"I'm not some gorram doll can be put up on a shelf to be stared at, 'stead of living my life," she said evenly, looking him right in the eye, chin lifted up and the one hand balled into a fist at her side. "Those men took something from me I can't never get back. Them being dead don't change what happened."

He flinched at that, and her expression softened slightly.

"But don't take away only thing I got left, Mal. Please don't. Serenity's my home. You all are my home. I just want—I wanna go home." Her voice broke, but she kept on going. "I ain't a little girl no more—and you can't keep on pretending that I am."

"But you are a little girl, Kaylee," Mal said, shaking his head with a wild little laugh that was halfway to a sob. "You are a kind, generous, cheerful, clever, devious, adept criminal mind all wrapped up in a little girl package—and you are the last bit of innocence I had that wasn't wiped out by the war, or this gorram bleak and generally all-around cruel 'verse we're floatin' through. And I shoulda been able to keep you safe. I should have been able to—to—" He swallowed hard. "Don't you see? It's my fault, and I can't make it right again."

He watched the anger drain out of her, like water leaving a broken vessel. Her lower lip quivered as she reached out and pulled him towards her with her good hand, until his chin rested on her shoulder. He closed his eyes, his hands gripping handfuls of the blankets as his throat burned raw with the effort of keeping the tears in.

"I'm sorry, mèimei," he said into her hair as her arms tightened around him. "I'm so sorry."

"I know," she whispered, and he felt her tears against his neck as she rocked him gently. "I know you are."

When the tears came this time, he finally just let them.

Translation Notes

ài rén sweetheart bà bà daddy (familiar) bù kê néng! no way! cào nî zûxi?n shí bâ dai fuck 18 generations of your ancestors daì ruò mù ji dumb as a wooden chicken dong ma? understand? duìbùqî sorry/excuse me guo-tie pan fried dumplings gôu pì bullshit gôushî bùrú lower than dogshit/lowest of the low g?xìng jìandào nî pleased to meet you húndàn asshole/bastard hâo de okay/will do! heishôudâng liúmáng gangster asshole/bastard(s) liúmáng bastard mâshàng on the double/quickly méiyôu mûqin de xiao gôu motherless cur mêilì beautiful/pretty nî bù dông you don't understand nî shòu shäng le you're hurt shìde yes/right away shuài hansome/snazzy t?m?de húndàn fucking bastard wode tìan Oh God! (lit. Oh sky!) xièxie thanks xièxie nî thank you xiâo mèimei little baby sister xin gan sweetheart, darling xin nian kuai le happy new year zôugôu yes man (pejorative) zhè bìng bù huài it's not that bad