Harriet had imagined Serenity was her home for nigh on 18 months now. When she had first been recruited to cook for the crew there had only been Mal, Zoe and Wash aboard and some terrifyingly dumb mechanic. Luckily Mal had got rid of him and taken on Kaylee a couple of weeks after she came on board and since then Serenity had been pretty much always in the sky. She liked the travel, the people didn’t always suck (except for Jayne) and some, Inara for one, were good friends. The life was one she enjoyed and they seemed to like her food. She was canny at getting all the fresh fruit and veg she could at the cheapest prices and if some of her own cut went on small luxuries like strawberries for Kaylee and chocolate for Wash, no one need know. If sometime the others remarked on how she was able to make the money for food stretch so far, she’d smile and brush it off and continue to fill the freezer.

Her talent for excellent and hearty grub had endeared her to many of the crew. Wash, Jayne and River would follow her around like puppies, particularly on Wednesday (baking day). Even Mal, irritated by another job not going smooth, could be rendered almost human by one of her special flapjacks. The upside of that horrible moment when the engine blew and they thought Zoe might die and that the Captain was dead, was that the refrigerating compartment had been shut off like everything else and all her carefully frozen dinners had begun to defrost in those few hours before everything got really cold again. There was nothing for it but a huge party where all the spoiled food was cooked and eaten, fruit savoured and vegetables relished. Book said it was what the church would call a Harvest Festival, a thanks giving for food and friends. It certainly put colour into even Simon’s pale cheeks and River was more lucid than usual enthusing over Harriet’s lasagne. Kaylee snuck off early with an entire punnet of strawberries and Harriet had watched with amusement as Simon had, as if pulled by some irresistible force, rather reluctantly followed after her within the space of a few minutes. She’d caught Mal’s eye and he’d waggled one eyebrow suggestively. She’d giggled and even Jayne’s disgusting comment of “don’t eat ’er all at once now, Doc” had seemed vaguely funny at the time.

Today, chopping parsley quietly in the galley she reflected on how cooking had such a great ability to calm her. As usual her row with the Captain had irritated her beyond measure but, not, she liked to think, upset her.

“Nope” was all he’d said as he strolled over to the coffee pot that morning.

“I ain’t asked you yet!”

“Don’t care, the answers no and don’t starting all that “I ain’t a reg’lar member of your crew, you can’t order me around” nonsense. This is my boat and I ain’t interested in whether you like takin’ orders or not. We’re not staying long enough, so you can’t go.”

“They need me! Since Ma died they ain’t got no one to do for them. Just let me go and fill their refrigerating unit . . . it won’t take more’n a week!”

“Hat, I ain’t got the time or the inclination to argue with you”, Mal sighed and rubbed his nose with a finger. The job, as always, was not going as smoothly as he liked and Harriet wanting to pay her kin a visit wasn’t helping. Harriet, as always when he looked so tired, resisted the urge to give in and make his life that little bit easier. She stood her ground (all five foot of it) and glared. She had a nasty stare perfected from a childhood as the youngest of four, with three elder and difficult brothers.

‘The Stare’ made Mal want to take a step back, but he’d faced down the barrel of a gun more than a few times. There was no way he was gonna be brow beaten by a slip of a girl, however good her dinners.

“And it ain’t gonna do you a mite of good glaring at me in that fashion. I ain’t one of your brothers. And, what’s more, it t’ain’t my fault as not one of them could get hisself a woman to do for ‘im. I mean, Gorramit Hat, I ain’t never met a more ornery bunch of good for nothing . . .!”

Harriet sighed “fine”, she snapped, before he was reduced to Chinese to describe the uselessness of her family. “But, Captain”, the word said with exaggerated care since she seldom called him by his title, being as, she said, it was against her democratic tendencies, “could I remind you that they are my family, whatever you may think of them and I’ll thank you not to call them names, least ways where I can hear”.

Mal yelped, “but you call ‘em names all the time, I’ve heard you!”

“yes, I’m ALLOWED, as I said, they’re my family! . . Now, I’m sure you have that job to be getting on with and I certainly have lunch to prepare. I heard tell that all that gun toting makes Jayne and Zo awful ravenous. Hope you ain’t expecting to eat though.” With a haughty perk of her nose, in an attempt to rise above the rather taller figure in front of her, she turned and began chopping onions with icy precision. At least that way she could blame the onions.

She heard him mutter; “right fine, gotta be gettin’ on” behind her and stomp out and as usual she found that preparing lunch calmed her. She further found that she had no need to mask her tears with onions; she wasn’t upset so much as livid. How dare he issue diktats against visiting her own family! Just ‘cos he didn’t like them, and to be fair, understandably, being as they were pretty vile and Jonah had beaten up Jayne pretty badly following that altercation over a whore, but then, he had sort of deserved it.

****

She was just pulling a huge chicken pie out of the oven when Wash, with his usual impeccable timing, sauntered in, led by the smell of baking, followed by Kaylee gripping some engine part and talking excitedly about updating the extenders.

“Oh my God, Hat, how do you do it? Is that really chicken pie?” Wash sauntered over for a good sniff and a prod. Harriet hit him with a tea towel.

“It is, made with the finest protein, but its for supper, when the others get back and not a moment before!”

“If’n I hadn’t met my Zo, you know I would have made the moves on you, just for your pie, don’tcha?”

“Oh Wash!” Kaylee moaned good-naturedly, “you said you’d take me! AND in a manly fashion, I might add!”

“Oopps! Sorry, Ladies, form an orderly queue!” Wash said with a mocking smile and bow.

“Ladies, queuing? Where?” said Jayne, appearing in the doorway. He seemed to be covered all over with some kind of orange mud. “Is supper ready? We got the cargo, now we just have to make the meet and hand it over and it ain’t like Zephyr’s a big place. Cap’ got hisself shot again though”, then, shouting over the squeal from Kaylee and Wash’s “is my Zoë ok?”, “Gorammit, he ain’t hurt bad, Doc’s stitching him up now, he said to tell you“, looking at Harriet, “to dish up . . Hey, is that chicken pie?” Jayne began to salivate as his big head drooped over the dish.

“Oh, *go se*! Why can’t you all just go away?” Harriet gritted her teeth. ”Jayne, go get cleaned up NOW . . Wash, round everyone up . . . Kaylee . .”, but Kaylee was already fishing about in the cupboards for plates and cutlery and simply grinned. “Thanks” sighed Harriet gratefully at her. Really, sometimes she felt like the whole ship’s mother!

“Anything you say, Mommy dearest!” said Wash, eerily echoing her thoughts and ran from the room.

*** Supper was a strange affair. Inara was out with a client, Zoë and Jayne where tired but happy that the job had gone ok so far and still adrenaline fuelled. Between then they ate most of the food. Simon was polite as always, complementing Harriet on the pie and chatting to Kaylee about the extenders. Mal was tired and his arm hurt where it’d been clipped. Nor could he ignore that he had been given substantially less food than everyone else when Harriet had dished up. She was obviously still mad.

“She giventh and she taketh away,” said River quietly looking at Mal. He sniggered as did the preacher, but Harriet glared. “Thank you River, that was most helpful!” She said, as icily as she could.

“How much longer are we gonna be here, Mal?” asked Wash, valiantly trying to change the course of the conversation but instead managing to pinpoint with extraordinary accuracy the exact point of contention.

“Well” Mal sighed, “I reckon it’ll take us a couple more days to make contact and then a day or two to transport and hand over the goods, say, a week?”

Harriet had got up to fetch the last of the pie and snorted audibly, banging the dish on the sideboard and looking pointedly at Mal. Not one failed to miss the tension and everyone looked from her to him and back again, as though watching a tennis match.

“Anyone want more pie?” she said pleasantly. Everyone, except Zoë and Simon held up their plates and Harriet divided the remnant equally between them all, pointedly ignoring Mal’s proffered dish. He sighed dramatically and reached for the water.

“Ok, Hat!” he said at last, grudgingly, “you can go see your folks if’n you’re so set on it BUT”, he raised a finger at her smirk, “this ain’t because o’ you’re punishing me by withholding food or anything . . just so happens this job is gonna take a mite longer than I first thought. And don’t blame me if we have to clear out real quick once we done the deal and leave you behind, ain’t got no time to be rounding up mavericks!”

“Oh, I surely won’t!” laughed Harriet, wondering why Mal tired to argue with her when they both knew she always won. “I’ll be there and back here in four days, I promise . . ‘sides . .”, she laughed as she pulled out a tiny pie she’d made with the leavings of the big one and set it before Mal, “you know I can only take my brothers for a day or two before I’ll be bound to shoot ‘em myself!”