[ okay dokay, here's part five. Sorry if it starts sounding like a Mary Sue or something, but there's plenty of bumps about Ana that haven't been written yet.... ]

Zoë and Wash were beginning to get rather over playful before they heard the music.

Wash was on top of Zoë, who was on top of the kitchen table. He had just begun to unbutton her shirt when the silence that came with the absence of their dirty talk for a moment hadn’t been so silent.

“What is that?” Zoë looked around, trying to pinpoint a source for the muffled but nonetheless beautiful melody they were hearing. Wash stopped too, and they lay on top of one another, listening.

“Isn’t that coming from Inara’s old room?” As soon as their arousal was distracted it was forgotten, and Zoë buttoned up her shirt and followed her husband towards the newcomer’s room. They walked lightly, trying not to make much noise. As they neared the room it got louder.

It was a guitar. A perhaps old-fashioned Earth instrument, but the melody plucked from it was a beautiful one. Then, suddenly, it broke into chords- and a moment later a throaty, slightly raspy, and beautiful voice gave the melody that had been playing before shape.

“And when I rest, O love of mine I’ll watch your dreams within mine I’ll know everything you know and love you But when you close your eyes and think Of every ship that wouldn’t sink You’ll know everything and I hope you love me And if the gentle starlight won’t remind you If they are no longer there to guide you Look for my face in the blackest night And when you find it, then you’ll have your love-light,”

The chords strummed, the voice was a fraction louder. Zoë looked down the hall and saw Simon creeping slowly towards them, his face frozen for straining his ears.

“Those were the merry fields Where all the children would congeal And I was always the last one to get there But then you would understand (I would imagine you taking my hand) And we’d run with the others but not see them So if you loose my fingers in the dark Your tears go cold and your body stark You must look for my face during the fight And when you find it, then you’ll have your love-light,”

Now the guitar picked out the melody again, softer and more run together than before. Kaylee and Jayne were now in the group of listeners, and River was creeping with her usual amount of total silence down the hall, looking rather confused but still delighted. The voice was a little lower, a little softer, and almost angelic.

“But nothing I’ve found’s been perfect in life For every ecstasy there is always strife These things are easy to forget around you You pulled me out of my hollow place You brought the sunlight onto my face You danced and knew joy and I envied you When you taught me how to sing It was your eyes, not by listening Took my small heart to a great height And when you found me, then you were my love-light You surround me and you are my love, my life When I look into your eyes I see your love-light,”

The last chords of the guitar faded, and an insanely human sound came from the room- a cough. Wash had the most mischievous look on his face. Zoë eyed him.

“Honey?” she whispered.

“Mm hm?”

“What’re you thinking?”

“Oh, nothin’,”

“Come on babe. Fess up,”

“Just… that we should definitely make her sing for Mal,” Zoë’s eyebrows shot heavenwards.

“That’s actually not such a bad idea-“

The door creaked open very quickly then, and Ana’s large grey eyes looked rather innocently out at them.

“What’s going on? Why’s ever’ one out here?” They all raised their eyebrows, very nearly at the same time. Her gazed danced from one face to another and back again.

“Heard me. Didn’t you?” She said it like it might have been a question or a statement.

“Ai ya…” Zoë caught the door before she could shut it.

“Oh no, missy. You ain’t off the hook that easy,”

***

“What is going on?” Mal asked, sitting at the kitchen table, dressed in the closest thing to Sunday best as he had, being served hot tea and a bowl of something that might’ve been soup or might’ve been something rather less pleasant.

“We just decided that maybe our good captain deserved somethin’ for… bein’ such a good captain an’ all,” Kaylee (who was dressed in waitress drag) said rather lamely.

“So I get a free meal?” he asked- and it sounded as if that wasn’t such a good thing.

“And an evening of entertainment,” she added, sounding more particularly pleased with that bit. ”Enjoy, Captain,” she said and left. There was a curtain drawn over one end of the kitchen, a red curtain like you expect to see at a performance stage or a really good restaurant. Mal tucked his napkin into his collar and eyed the soup suspiciously, sipping his tea for good measure. Then, the lights dimmed, and a couple of rigged safely lights shone at the stage.

“And now, Mal, your personal performance,” said Wash’s voice over the intercom.

“Wu de tyen ah,” Mal mumbled. The curtain drew back, and he was more than a little surprised to see Ana sitting meekly on the edge of a stool, a battered guitar in her hand and dressed in Kaylee’s sequined shirt and a pair of Zoë’s pants. Her hair was brushed and her face was very clean- almost too clean. Mal raised an eyebrow.

“Good evening, ladies and gents, and I guess this is what they call entertainment these days, ha,” she said, rather like she didn’t want to be there. There was a loud screeching noise from the speakers.

“Alright, Wash, geez,” she said, adjusting her earpiece. “I wrote this one a few years ago, and they wanted me to sing it, so here I go,” She twanged some on her guitar, tuning it delicately. Then she proceeded to play the song that the rest of the ship had listened to the night before.

*

The last chords reverberated across the room, along with the last strains of her voice. Mal was just staring at her in an odd way, his soup was stone cold.

“You can do ever’thing, can’t you?” he asked as she came down, setting her guitar on its stand.

“Not ever’thing, surely,”

“What else is there? You can draw, you can fix random bits and pieces of Serenity, you can shoot damn well, you can steal without gettin’ caught, you can play guitar, write music and sing. Don’t leave much room for improvement, does it?”

“Plenty room,”

“For what?”

“Oh, book learnin’, decent handwriting, good clothes, a decent job, some sorta religion, friends… boyfriends…” She added the last one as an afterthought. Mal raised an eyebrow.

“Clothes- no one here had clothes. Or a decent job, or much of a religion, except Book when he’s on of course, and as far as friends you got us now. And book learnin’- no one wants to stay cooped up inside with a book when we land on weird planets! And handwriting- computers do everything anyhow. Boyfriends… now I don’t know about the one…” His grin was mischievous, and she loved it and withdrew from it all at once.

“Couldn’t be any sorta help there now couldja, Cap’n?” she teased. “Nope, none whatsoever,” he said, just as teasing, in return. She laughed- it was a bubbly sound, a sound of pure childish happiness, the laugh of a kid opening Christmas presents.

“You were good entertainment though, honest,” Mal said, smiling, trying not to look at his untouched ‘meal.’ Ana had, very unexpectedly, turned bright red.

“You’re just sayin’ that. I ain’t that great, Cap’n,”

“You really were! It was very pretty,”

“Aw… thank ya Cap’n,”

“You should keep calling me Cap’n you know. It’s only appropriate,”

“I should? Why?”

“Because,” he said with a flourish, “You’re now going to be an official member of my crew,” Ana’s jaw dropped. “You’re gonna let me in?”

“Yeah, why not? You’re super-handy,”

“And my papers are up to date,”

“True,”

“What I am gonna be, ‘xactly?” Mal made a face.

“Haven’t worked out all the details yet. For now though, you can be the… um… handyman. Er, handy-person,” Ana laughed again. Mal could almost hear a rhythm.

“Ok, then, Cap’n, official handy-person Analith reporting for duty,” she said with a solute. Mal grinned.

“Alright, your first job is to get everyone out here and sing to all of us, a new song,” Ana made a face. “Is this gonna happen often?”

“Maybe,”

“Mal!”

“Cap’n Mal! Remember!”

“Fong luh,” She turned on her earpiece. “Ok Wash, get everyone out here for the grand finale, Cap’n’s orders,” The remainder of the crew emerged from behind the curtains, out of the door to the cockpit. She grudgingly sang for them, and Mal discreetly threw away his soup, munching on a protein ration block, listening with relish as Ana sang another song.

There was once a time when you said hello and I was always the one who said goodbye I’ve never felt that quite like now That you turned the tables around Now you are bidding farewell

I’m not the one who lost their way You lost your whole life to me Given up and left to cry, I put your memories away And now there in my mind They’re hiding to come out one day

A place we can go, far back into time When you loved me so and I always said goodbye I dream of your face and wonder why I pushed you Away, because I felt it so much when you turned and said Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye It is not mine, it is not yours I wonder why I ever said Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye