So here is us, on the raggedy edge. – Captain Mal Reynolds

Serenity hummed happily beneath him and all was right in the ‘Verse. Well, nearly all was right. Well, truth be told, nothing much was ever right in the ‘Verse, but Mal had learned to be content regardless. Well, nearly content. Well, truth be told –

“Captain.” Shook from his thoughts, Mal turned to find a very agitated Dr. Tam standing on the walkway behind him. Beneath them, in the cargo bay, there was a loud crash followed by some creative cursing by way of Jayne.

“Jayne,” Mal called over the railing “Mind the goods or yer goin’ back out into the wet and mud to get more, dong ma?”

Jayne growled deep in his throat and kicked a crate across the floor, all the while staring at Mal to let him know it wasn’t the crate he was thinking about while he was kicking it.

“Ya hardly got a speck of mud on ya,” Jane groused “Neither does the doc, though that could be from the sissified way he tiptoed through the streets. Seems to me the only one what got dirty is me-”

“Not true,” Zoe chimed in, shaking mud from the hem of her pants “I’m all dirty.”

“I’ve got grease,” Kaylee called as she pushed a crate into one of Serenity’s many hiding spaces “Does grease count?”

“Sure does, Kaylee-bear,” Mal assured.

Jayne gave them a dirty look and continued stowing cargo. “Well, I got powerful dirty and nearly broke my back gettin’ us out of there as quick as you were wantin’. I hope Badger knows he’ll be buyin’ me new boots, cos as I see it, these are shot. And he can pitch in fer…

Mal let Jayne go on. He could complain all he wanted, so long as he was working on their side and, well….working. He turned back to Simon, who seemed to be even more agitated.

“Yes, doc, what’s on your mind?”

Simon drew a breath and eyed Mal for a minute, trying to figure out if the Captain’s interest was genuine or if he was just being placated.

“Well,” Simon started cautiously “I was told I could acquire supplies on Tawaret if I helped with the job and could guarantee River stayed on the ship. I complied, but you did not hold up your end of the bargain. As things are in the infirmary, should anyone be injured-”

“Doc,” Mal cut Simon off “The, uh, climate on Tawaret was not such as we’d want to stick around for yer acquirin’.”

“The political climate, you mean?”

“That would be the one. Now, we’ll be comin’ into the Evesdown Docks a’fore you know it, so-”

“The political climate never seems to be conducive to anything other than load and run when you’re involved. All I’m asking, as ship surgeon, which is a post you assigned to me, I might add, is that I have proper supplies to carry out my duties.”

Mal’s face went through varying stages of anger as Simon spoke, but finally settled on dead calm, which, had he been paying attention, might have clued Simon in that now was the time to flee.

“Now you wait just a minute, you qiāng fèi fèi shǔ. This is my ship and as such-”

“And as such ‘you won’t be told what to do.’ Yes, I’ve heard the speech before. I’m merely pointing out that I can’t do my job if you don’t follow through on your end.” Walking by on the way to her shuttle, Inara gave Kaylee a meaningful glance and jerked her head once, quickly towards Simon and Mal. Kaylee nodded and started up the stairs.

“Doc-tor Tam,” Mal said with quiet menance “I asked you on this job as a kindness. Us needin’ another person and you not wantin’ your sister out in the danger of the great wide ‘Verse. I made it clear, after Mir…well, after, that you two weren’t leavin’ the ship together till we were sure the Alliance wasn’t breathin’ down our necks. Now, this is my ship and you will take my orders and assume that all my decisions were made for the best of the crew and for yerself and yer sister. This was one of them decisions. If ya don’t like it, we just left a perfectly good rock behind. I’m sure I could persuade Serenity to return for a brief touchdown.”

Outgunned, Simon seethed silently for a moment before deciding on his next course of action. He opened his mouth the say something else, but Kaylee, reading the atmosphere perfectly, grabbed Simon gently by the arm and led him away from Mal.

“I’ve got a port thruster needs seein’ to, Simon,” she said as they walked away “Why don’t you come down to the engine room and tell me why we’re in such a hurry to leave while I take care of my girl.”

Simon looked back over his shoulder once, but Kaylee tugged on his arm a bit harder and he gave up the fight. Zoe came to stand next to the Captain and they both watched the two leave.

“We headin’ for Persephone?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Already pointed that direction,” Mal answered “If River’s doin’ her job. We’ll fence through Badger and make a tidy profit. Might even be able to buy enough fuel to keep us from falling out of the sky.”

“Well there’s a comforting thought,” she said and then turned to look at Mal. “Why are we in such a hurry? Seems to me things went smooth.”

Mal reached inside of his coat and pulled out a pouch heavy with platinum. “Hiram Riley was a bit more generous than he knows about yet,” he said. “I wanted to be gone a’fore he realized it.” “Sir,” Zoe admonished.

Mal looked innocent and wounded all at the same time, neither very convincing.

“What?” he asked “He called my ship a tin can piece of go se. Figured I’d fix her up a little, is all.”

He tossed the coins in the air and caught them, the bag giving a soft, lovely chink, and opened the top, tossing a coin to Zoe. She smiled, or smiled as much as she was able these days, and went to clean herself up.

Jayne cleared his throat and looked at Mal, then cut his eyes to the bag.

“Boots,” he said as Mal sighed and tossed him some coin as well.

“Greedy buzzards,” Mal said with a smile “I should space you all.”

“Well,” Jayne said as he stowed the last crate “Seems to me that’s an empty threat.”

“Is it?” Mal asked, a gleam in his eye.

“Yeah, it is. Yer not scary enough to get my special discounts. Ya need me for bargaining, if nothing else. Zoe would plain kill ya a’fore you’d half formed the thought. You’d never in a million years space Kaylee, cos the second ya tried she’d give ya the big eyes. ‘Nara would smile and ya’d forget what you was doin’. Crazy would go all….crazy and that’d be it fer you and probably the rest of us, so it’s best to avoid that, if ya please. And the Doc, well….the Doc you can space. I’ll help. Think I’ve got some rope around here somewhere.” Inara let out a short burst of laughter at Jayne’s deduction just before she disappeared through the door of her shuttle. It went unnoticed, though, as Mal was staring at his merc, confounded.

“Basically, you’re sayin’ two of the women would outright kill me, one would guilt me to death, one would dissuade me with her wiles, the Doc is disposable and I need you for your….people skills?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

“Right,” Mal said “Huh.”

Jayne shrugged and gave a forlorn look down at his ruined boots before looking back up at the Captain.

“Glad I could help ya come to terms with that. I’ll be in my bunk.”

He started to walk away, but turned back.

“Oh, s’yer night fer grub.”

Mal took in the empty cargo hold and stood there, his thumbs tucked beneath the buckle of his belt.

“It’s my ship,” he said half-petulantly “Captain’s don’t do grub.”

He sighed, realizing he was talking to himself and started towards the mess to see if he could perform the miracle of fishes and loaves with the protein sequencer.

****

“These are just a few of the images we've recorded. And you can see, it wasn't what we thought. There's been no war here and no terraforming event. The environment is stable. It's the Pax….”

Those words had torn through the verse. From cortex to cortex, the message spread from Rim to Core and everywhere inbetween. Mr. Universe had been right, you can’t stop the signal. What he hadn’t counted on was that no one would believe it.

The Core worlds immediately dismissed it as anti-Alliance propaganda and those few folks who didn’t knew enough or knew better than to say so.

“The G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate that we added to the air processors. It was supposed to calm the population, weed out aggression. Well, it works. The people here stopped fighting. And then they stopped everything else. They stopped going to work, they stopped breeding, talking, eating”.

On the Rim, the Alliance was roundly hated, but also roundly feared. The Independants had been brutally quashed and no one wished a repeat of the War. There were a few small uprisings on a few small moons, but nobody heard much from them anymore….and after a time, a shorter amount of time than one might imagine, life returned, basically to normal. The Alliance was a little more vigilant and your average man was a little more bitter, but the order of things looked the same on the surface.

"There's 30 million people here, and they all just let themselves die.”

“Mei Mei,” Simon said quietly as he came into the spare shuttle “Turn that off.”

River turned to look at Simon, her eyes bright not with tears, but with anger.

“They wouldn’t listen,” she said.

“I know, mei mei. Now, please, turn that off.”

River switched off the cortex and watched as Simon took her in with a doctor’s eyes, making sure she wasn’t in any distress.

“I couldn’t find you,” he said “You weren’t on the bridge….”

“Bridge is clean,” she said offhandedly.

“I’m sure it is, but-“

“And it was a bit crowded in there.”

“It was empty, mei mei,” Simon said, worry creeping into his voice “We were all in the cargo bay.”

“I know,” she answered “It was a bit crowded in here.”

And she pointed to her head.

Simon stuttered, looking for an answer, but she motioned for him to be quiet.

“I couldn’t think in there, is all,” she answered “It was not conducive to reflection.”

“You always seem so happy up there,” he started. She cocked her head to the side and was quiet for a moment, then interrupted.

“Kaylee wants you.” A moment later, Kaylee could be heard, calling for Simon.

As Simon started to leave, she reached for the switch to turn back on the cortex, but he turned around.

“Don’t turn that back on,” he commanded and then softened “Please.”

She stuck her tongue out at him and stood, walking past him and out of the shuttle.