This started as a little drabble for the ff_Friday live journal challenge on the topic of surprises. But you know sometimes there's more of a story that wants to be told than you can do in 1000 words. So this one expanded. In fact if you like it there just might be another chapter or two in there to be written.

You know all the usual disclaimers, consider them said so we can get on with the story. And sorry guys, no 174 feral chihuahuas in this one!

The Surprise

They’d just landed on Chimera. Jayne was helping their customer unload the cargo and Mal and Zoe were looking on while they discussed possibilities for the next run. A young girl came up to the cargo bay. She was slightly built, dark-haired and kinda reminded Mal of someone; he couldn’t place just who though. She looked around the cargo bay diffidently. Didn’t seem to be very outgoing, that one. Mal and Zoe stopped their conversation, both wondering who she was and why she was there.

"Can one of us help you, Miss? I’m Captain Reynolds. Do you have a message for me or somethin’?"

Her eyes lit up a little at his name, like she was relieved to find him without having to ask. "I’m Mary Jo. Can I talk to you in private, please, sir?"

"Don’t call me sir, my name’s Mal. Ain’t nothin’ you could say that Zoe here can’t be in on." Mal was way too smart to go off with some strange young girl in private. That sort of thing led to all kinds of nasty accusations and undeserved jail time. "But if you don’t want to talk out here, we can go to the kitchen."

"Yessir, that would be good, sir."

The three of them settled at the table and the adults got cups of coffee and gave the girl some water to drink Mal asked, "Now what’s on your mind, Mary Jo?"

She looked embarrassed. Then hung her head and started to talk in a very low voice. "My mama sent me to find you when she heard this ship had landed. She said you’d be taking care of me from now on."

"And did she say why that would be?" Mal was actually very gentle about asking especially considering he was more than a little upset by what the girl said. He wasn’t real interested in taking on another responsibility and certainly not some strange girl. One strange girl on the ship was more than enough.

The girl glanced at Zoe uncertainly. "Mama said…" Mary Jo looked down, took a really deep breath and continued, "she said that you’re my pa and as she’s …" She started crying. Mal and Zoe looked at each other, Zoe trying hard not to laugh at the stunned ox expression on Mal’s face. She knew this was not funny to either the girl or Mal, but he looked so surprised .

Mal glared at Zoe to try to forestall another reaction like the time she’d found out he was ‘married’ to Saffron. Then he gently reached out and squeezed her hand. "It’s OK; I’m not mad at you, you don’t need to cry. But I need to know the whole story here Why don’t you tell me who your ma is and what’s wrong that she wants to send you to me and why she didn’t come with you."

"I’m sorry. I didn’t meant to cry," she sniffed. "But mama’s dying and she’s too sick to come way out here. She said you’d know her as Catie O’Brien; she said she and you were friends back on Shadow where she was born."

Catie O’Brien. Now there was a name he hadn’t heard in years. Darned if it wasn’t possible that the girl was his. He and Catie had certainly done enough fooling around in the hay loft before her parents had left Shadow for some moon farther away from civilization. And the girl did kind of favor him now that he was looking for it. A daughter. What the gorram hell was he supposed to do with a teenage daughter?

‘Course while Mal was thinking these things, the silence stretched on uncomfortably for the girl and Zoe. Finally Mary Jo began to softly cry again. This strange man hadn’t indicated one way or another if he agreed with her ma about whose child she was and she was deeply afraid that he wouldn’t turn out to be her pa because who would she have then with mama dying and all? And even if he was, what if he wouldn’t take her in? She didn’t see that she’d be much use on a little boat like this. She was pretty good at caring for chickens and other farm animals, but not so much with mechanical things. At least he hadn’t got mad and hit her. That’s how her stepfather would have behaved and she’d been afraid that would be Mal’s reaction as well.

Zoe looked at the crying girl and the stunned man and decided that she needed to bring Mal back from his reverie. "Mal?"

Mal kind of blinked and shook his head. "Huh?" He looked a question at Zoe. She, in turn, just looked at Mary Jo sitting at the kitchen table tears silently running down her face. She softly said, " If I were in her shoes, I be frightened of your reaction and afraid of the change in my life. Maybe you could give her some reassurance."

"So you think it’s likely I am her pa then?"

"Sir, I know you well enough to know that you think it’s likely or you would have protested by now. But Simon can tell for sure; you want me to get him up here?"

"Mary Jo," Mal called softly to her. Zoe was right, she was probably afraid and Mal didn’t want to make this experience any more frightening for her. She looked up at him, tears still streaming down her face. "I expect your ma is right, but don’t you have some relatives or family friends who you’d feel more comfortable staying with?"

"No, sir. Can’t say I’d feel real happy about staying with my step-daddy and I ain’t seen my grandpa since I was 4 years old. From what my ma says, I doubt he’d be too happy to see me neither. She was gonna send me to him anyway, til your ship came in. She said you coming here just now was God answering her prayers. But if you don’t want me either…" Mary Jo burst into tears again.

Mal cringed inwardly at that God statement; he’d forgotten how religious Catie had been. ‘Course he’d been that religious in those days, too. Well that wasn’t important right this minute. He kept getting sidetracked into thoughts of a past he thought he’d left far behind. Well, he knew for damn sure what his ma would expect him to do. Best he reassure this poor little girl that she had a place here. He knew how it felt to lose the only kin you knew and be all alone in the ‘verse and he’d been right much older when it happened to him.

"Well don’t know as I hold with the notion that God sent me, but you are certainly welcome to stay if you need to. Wouldn’t throw any kin of mine out to face the ‘verse by herself. It’s just that it’s a hard life out here in the black and I wanted to see if maybe there was a place you’d rather be, wasn’t trying to say you couldn’t stay. I would like to talk to your ma first. And I have a good doctor on board. Maybe he could do something to help her. I know medical care ain’t real common out here. Be surprised if she’s even been seen by a doctor."

"No sir, ain’t no doctors anywhere’s near our farm. You really think he could fix her?"

"Now don’t get your hopes up. Might not be possible. But I would like him to take a look if your ma won’t object."

"My step-daddy might object. He ain’t like to approve of anything that might cost him something."

"You let me worry about him. Zoe, ask Simon to join us in the cargo bay , would ya?"

An hour later they landed the shuttle on a not too prosperous looking farm. They could see a man plowing a field out a-ways. Mal let Mary Jo lead him to the cabin with Zoe and Simon following close behind. In the bedroom, Mal saw his childhood sweetheart asleep on the bed. She looked gaunt and if he hadn’t heard she was dying, he would have guessed it just looking at her. Mal gently picked up her hand. "Hey, Catie."

She opened her eyes, saw Mal and smiled. "I’m sorry I never got to tell you about Mary Jo. But my pa was so mad he kept me locked away from the cortex for years. Once me and Mary Jo got free of him, you’d gone to war and I didn’t figure I should tell you such a thing whilst you was fighting if’n you couldn’t come back to see her."

"It’s OK, I’m not mad. Don’t you worry none about Mary Jo, I’ll see she’s taken care of. Got a doc here would like to examine you if it’s OK with you." Catie nodded yes and Mal motioned Simon up to see her.

"Mal, this is best done privately. Can you and the girl go in the other room?" Mal nodded and ushered Mary Jo out of the room.

Simon came out a few minutes later just as a large man burst through the front door. Mary Jo cowered when she saw him.

"Who the hell are you and what the hell are you doing on my ranch?"

Mal looked at Simon who shook his head. "Damn," Mal thought. Then he addressed the man looming in the doorway.

"I’m Malcolm Reynolds and this is Zoe and Simon. We came to see Catie." While his voice was mild, something in it had an overlay of steel. Mary Jo looked at him, surprised. He’d been so gentle with her; she hadn’t realized that this was not a man to get on the bad side of.

"Ain’t no men welcome to see my wife and that’s a fact. Now get out."

"Not unless she asks us to leave." The tone was no longer mild, but hard and challenging.

Simon looked uncomfortable, but he was mad too after examining Catie. "If you were any kind of a man at all you would have gotten her medical attention. This could easily have been fixed two months ago, now it’s too far gone." He looked at Mary Jo who was standing there stunned. "I’m sorry Mary Jo, Wish there was something I could do to fix her. I can make her more comfortable though."

The rancher lunged toward Simon, but stopped as he heard the unmistakable click of guns being cocked for firing. He looked up and saw Zoe and Mal both with a steady aim at his head.

"It might not be advisable to harm my doctor." There was ice in his voice now and sheer determination. Suddenly the rancher realized that maybe these people weren’t intimidated by him and maybe force wouldn’t work so well on them as it did on his stepdaughter and wife. "Now go sit down over there and we can discuss what’s to be done, like civilized folk. Mary Jo, maybe it would be best if you went in to keep your ma company." Mal’s tone gentled again to talk to his daughter. She could hardly believe it was the same voice, the tone was so different. But she knew a good escape when she was offered one, so she left as quick as she could.

The rancher sat. Mal put away his gun, although Zoe kept hers aimed at him.

"I find it easier to talk with a man if I know his name."

"Cal Lydecker" , he mumbled. "Why do you want to see my Catie anyway? You ain’t from around here or I’d know you, so who the gorram hell are you?"

"I’m Mary Jo’s father. Catie wants me to take custody of her." Simon spun around to look at Mal, totally stunned.

"Didn’t think the little bitch had a father."

Zoe saw the look in Mal’s eyes at that comment and spoke for the first time. "Perhaps you’d care to rephrase that. She seems to be a nice child to me." Of course the fact that she was still holding a gun pointed at his head made the words have somewhat more weight than he usually gave to anything a woman said.

"Catie never mentioned that Mary Jo’s father was still alive."

"That’s better." Zoe looked at Mal and winked. He shook his head at her.

"Well to be honest, I never knew til just today that I had a daughter. However, that don’t mean I won’t do my damnedest to protect her. And she is sure as hell not staying here after…" Mal’s voice broke on that last word and he couldn’t finish the sentence. He’d loved Catie with all his heart a long time ago and always regretted that her family had moved before she was old enough for him to marry her. It didn’t seem right to see her again and know she was dying. It also didn’t seem right that he was more broken up about it than her hwoon dahn husband was.

"Simon, how long doe she have?" Mal hated to ask the question but he needed the answer.

"If she stays here and this whoo dahn piece of gos se takes care of her, maybe two-three days, a week at most. If you bring her back to the ship, I can make her more comfortable and maybe give her a month more time, maybe two."

Mal looked at Catie’s husband. "You heard the doc, she’ll do better and die easier if we take her. So I’m asking her if she wants to go with us. And no gorram way will you be able to stop me from taking her if she wants to go. Dong ma?"

Cal looked at the man’s hard face and the gun the woman had pointed at him. "Take her; she ain’t no use to me like she is anyways."

Catie agreed to go as Mal figured she would. They carefully loaded her on the shuttle and took off. Simon couldn’t hold in his questions any longer. "Your daughter? When did this happen?"

"I think it’s plain it happened about 15 years ago, doc. Catie and I were sweethearts back then when she wasn’t much older than Mary Jo here." He ruffled Mary Jo’s hair, then the startling notion that she wasn’t any older than her mother was when she first had sex hit him. For the first time, he realized why maybe her dad didn’t much care for him. "Now that don’t give you permission to do any thing of the same sort now, Mary Jo." He heard Zoe turn a laugh into a cough and knew he’d be in for some teasing later when she wasn’t flying the shuttle.

"Mal."

"What is it Catie? We’ll be back to Serenity soon. Then we can make you more comfortable."

"Thank you."

"It’s OK Catie, my girl. Glad I could do something to help my girls." Mal smiled and held her hand. With his other hand he reached out to Mary Jo and pulled her close. Catie smiled and lost consciousness. Mary Jo started to cry again.

Back on Serenity, the rest of the crew was wondering where Mal, Zoe and Simon had got off to. Zoe hadn’t even told Wash where they were going, just that they had to run an errand and they left with some girl no one had ever seen before. They all gathered in the cargo bay waiting to see what had happened. Jayne was grousing about how nobody but him helped unload the cargo when the shuttle docked. Inara turned toward the shuttle, ready to give Mal some grief about the quality of customers on this planet. "Mal, you know I …" Her words trailed off as Mal left the shuttle with his arm around the waist of a crying teenage girl and Simon and Zoe wheeled out a stretcher with some other woman unconscious on it. Mal looked at his passengers and crew, his friends. He saw the look on Inara’s face and knew this would probably hurt her. He was sorry about that, but he couldn’t not help Catie and Mary Jo because of it. He owed them this for not being there earlier. Well, best to get the shock over with. "As you can all plainly see, we have two new passengers. This here is Mary Jo, she’s my daughter. And on the stretcher is her mother Catie."