Disclaimer: All references are copyright of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, of course. Thanks for giving us such amazing characters to play with - it's like having a shiny new toolbox!

I've been writing for some time but this is my first attempt at a fanfic, so any comments are mighty appreciated. Here goes...

NEW PROSPECTS A Firefly Story by Jayro

1 The black… Mal had seen it countless times through the battered windshield of his ship, but never more had it lived up to its billing than now. Even the stars seemed to have been frightened away from this region, and they had every reason to be fearful, for this was Reaver country. That name was almost taboo aboard Serenity now. The cannibalistic demons had visited too great a hurt upon her crew, and though River Tam had done her best that day to exact all kinds of vengeance with her blades, the loss of Wash still pained each and everyone. The toy dinosaurs remained, dotted about the pilot’s console, but there was an empty space on the bridge that could never be completely filled. Mal glanced back from the window, at the willowy teenaged girl seated at the control yoke. She was flying Serenity solo for the first time but he was not unduly anxious. Beyond her tumbling curtains of dark hair, the look on her face was one of implacable calm. “Talk to me, little one,” he said thoughtfully. “Tell me shiny things.” The girl turned her big eyes in his direction; he could almost feel her reading him. After a moment a slight, knowing smile flickered across her face. “Everything’s fine," she said. "You shouldn’t worry so much.” Mal had no doubt that River could pilot his ship as perfectly and precisely as Wash. He recalled the words of the doctor, her brother, when he told the assembled crew that there was nothing that did not come as easily to her as breathing did to everyone else. But she did not have Wash’s creativity and sleight of hand at the helm. That was something she would have to learn, and quickly. Still he wasn’t sure if he’d made the right decision. Ever since Miranda her mind had seemed much the clearer, and her behaviour was almost what passed for normal, but she remained unpredictable: a wild card in every sense of the word. Nobody – not he nor the good doctor, nor even the girl herself – could tell what other triggers, if any, lay dormant in her maltreated mind. That was why he was not leaving her alone on the flight deck just yet. “That’s bad space out there,” he said. “I expect to worry.” “It’s empty. No lights. No-one’s home.” Before Mal could even begin to translate her pronouncement, Kaylee’s cutesy voice piped out of the ‘com. She sounded anxious. “Don’t mean to alarm, Captain, but the conductors’re startin’ to run mighty hot…” Mal retrieved the mike from above his head to answer. “Just do what y’can. Won’t be much longer, anyways.” “Okay,” came the reply, though he could tell from her tone that it was anything but. They were fair crawling along, and he was asking a lot of Kaylee, and of Serenity, to muffle the engine’s output this way. He knew that he risked burning out the coils, and that would not be good at all – not here. But it would be only marginally worse than if their exhaust signal was detected by a Reaver ship. Mal left the window and climbed the short ladder back onto the flight deck, where he stood in behind his youthful pilot. He rested one hand on the console, the other on the back of the chair. It was a new chair; the ravaged original had been consigned to the scrap heap. It had seemed kind of symbolic at the time. New chair, new pilot. All kinds of new. They were heading for Trinity, a small moon on the very fringe of the system. A wave had come their way from an old acquaintance with an offer of work. It was a simple job, nothing too illegal, and promised two things. First and foremost, it gave the crew something to do, to get their minds back on work. It was an important step. All the grieving in the world would not put food on the table, nor fuel through the engines. Secondly, it was a chance for them to begin rebuilding their name. The Alliance’s man had put many of their friendly faces to the sword, and news like that travelled fast: ever since then, Mal had found that even the most hardened of ‘businessmen’ became skittish when Serenity’s name was mentioned. She was poisonous, was the talk. A marked ship. But at last, someone had taken a chance on them, though that was not out of character for Ossie Chen: the man was an inveterate gambler. It was important that they get this job done quickly and efficiently. Ossie had a lot of useful contacts. Valuable contacts. And the sooner the word got about that Serenity was back on the scanner, the easier Mal would sleep. “Money makes the world go round,” observed River. “Don’t like you in my head, little albatross. You keep on listenin’ to what I’m thinkin’, might hear somethin’ you don’t like.” “That’s very often the case.” Mal pursed his lips. Don’t you go havin’ one of your funny turns now, he thought. Not while you’re flyin’ my ship. They were almost clear. The bright chart scrolling slowly across the screen by Mal’s left hand was now being bisected by a vivid blue line. That denoted safety – the end of known Reaver space. At least there were less of them now. Mal had seen little of the air war that he had instigated in the ion cloud – they were trying like hell to get through the colliding fleets without becoming casualties themselves, as he recalled – but he guessed that a lot of the Reaver ships had been destroyed. And the crew, ‘specially River, had accounted for a goodly number of the creatures on the ground. But they were still out there - still hungry. And Mal was damn sure they would recognise Serenity again if they saw it, junkered or no. He found the ‘com above his head once more, and switched it to ‘broadcast all’. “This is the Captain. Looks like we’re through the worst of it. We’re not more’n a day out from Trinity. Kaylee, bring the power back up a slight.” After a moment he added, “Zoe, I need you on the bridge.” “More empty space,” said River softly, and for once, Mal cottoned exactly what she meant.

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Zoe Washburne no longer slept in the room she had shared with her husband. This was not only because the marital bed was resting in the same scrap yard as his holed chair. The room itself held too many memories. And Zoe had found that she was not good at dealing with memories. The War, she could handle. She had seen and done terrible things in those days – watched friends cut in half by Alliance cannon fire; heard the liquid gurgles of sentries with slit throats – and they haunted her not a jot. It seemed strange to her that she could be brought low by this. She had moved herself and a few select belongings into the quarters next door. It was much smaller than the other room, and made even more so by the curve of the ship’s wall, but at least here she could sit in darkened peace and solitude, and Wash’s ghost could not see her when she cried. Sometimes she imagined she could still hear him, the jaunty voice drifting down from the bridge – cracking wise to Jayne, talking shop with Kaylee, or protesting with Mal against some damn-fool scheme or other – and she would half-smile at her man and wonder at his incorrigible levity. Other times, she couldn’t hear him at all. Those times were the worst. The speaker above the bunk suddenly blared talk. She listened impassively and then, when Mal called for her to come to the bridge, stood up and walked briskly to the ladder, all business once more. She was conscious that she was coming to rely more and more on Mal – their war bond was impossible to break, had always been so, often to the dismay of her husband – but she needed that rudder now. Mal had kept her focused, kept her sailing true through the worst storms she had ever known. But it meant that, when the time came, leaving was going to be all the harder.

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Jayne hawked noisily and spat a huge glob of phlegm onto his black whetstone. Across the table, Simon’s fork halted halfway to his mouth. The protein mix balanced on it suddenly looked awfully like something else. “Honestly?” he said, after a pregnant pause. “I think it’s sweet that we have our little routines. Touching, even. But I'm trying to eat here.” “Ain’t stoppin’ ya,” said Jayne, smoothing in the phlegm with the flat edge of his knife. “The point I am making,” continued Simon, without looking – he couldn’t look, not if he wanted to keep down what he had already ingested – “is that I haven’t eaten all day. You know how thin the food supplies are getting. I’m very hungry, and I’d like to eat in peace.” “Ain’t,” said Jayne, licking the edge of his knife, “stoppin’ ya.” Simon decided that, for once in his life, it would be acceptable not to dine at the table. He scooped up his bowl and cutlery and made his way quickly out of the dining area, down the hall and into the engine room, where the prettiest, sweetest mechanic in the 'verse was busily putting out a fire. “Oh, hey, honey,” she said brightly, as though nothing were amiss. Her beaming smile seemed to glow against the darkness of her sooty face. She eyed the bowl in his hand. “Did you fancy a picnic or something?” “Jayne.” Kaylee sighed. “Oh Simon, you mustn’t let him get one up all the time. You know how he gets off on it.” “He was sharpening his knife,” he said, and Kaylee made the face of unpleasant recollection. “So I decided to bring my meal down here, out of the way, but…” Simon observed as she gave the sizzling panel another squirt of retardant, “it looks like you’re busy…” “Oh, don’t mind all this. It’s not so bad as it looks. Take more’n a few sparks, you know?” She put the canister down and wiped her hands on her brown overall, watching him as he carefully balanced on the edge of her hammock. “Talkin’ of Jayne,” she said, “I thought you were gonna be more pushy around him. 'Assert' yourself, remember?” “I was. And I’ve tried. But he seems worse than ever, now that we’re…” He felt the old prickly flush creep into his cheeks. “You know – since we started…” “Docking?” She laughed, picked up a long brush and began cleaning retardant from the panel she had just sprayed. “Oh, Simon, how long is it now, and you still can’t say the word ‘sex’ to me?” “I can. And I have. When it’s appropriate.” “Oh, that word again. I’ve heard that one too many times.” Kaylee clicked her tongue petulantly. “Still, words don’t mean nothin’ if you can’t stand up to folk. Jayne knows that. He just wants you put on the back foot.” “Why? I thought he might be a little more accepting of me now. I mean,” he added, deadpan, “we’re practically family.” “Well… He’s known me a longer time. He might be a big ol’ thug, but he’s always looked out for me.” She shrugged as she brushed. “Maybe he’s jealous.” “Maybe so.” Simon stared distantly at what remained in his bowl. “I know River is.” Kaylee stopped scrubbing and turned to look at him with an incredulous expression. “What?” she said, half-laughing. “Of you,” he went on. “Though perhaps ‘jealous’ isn’t the best term. I’m all she has, you see. All she’s ever had. And now you’re on the scene, and… well, suddenly I’m not there for her. Not all the time, anyway. It’s something she isn’t used to.” “Oh.” Kaylee folded her arms. “You mean, I’ve become the competition?” Simon recognised the signals. “In a way. Look,” he said, trying to placate her, “please don’t take offence. It’s important that you understand this. I know I say things wrong sometimes…” “Only sometimes?” “Very well: a lot of the time. But River isn’t healed yet. Not by a long way. She knows that, and she needs me to be there when, well, when I’m needed. It’s important to her well-being that I am. And if she thinks that I’m not…” “You think she might run wild again?” Now Kaylee’s expression was clouding with alarm. She let slip a stream of anxious Chinese. “I’m not saying that’s what’ll happen,” he said soothingly. “But I have to make sure that she remains comfortable here, and in herself. It’s important to everyone that I do so. And it’s important to me that you realise that I have a duty to her, as well as to you.” The loudspeaker crackled into life above their heads at that point, as if to punctuate Simon’s words. Mal’s tinny voice directed Kaylee to go for full burn on his mark. “She’ll always be my sister," said Simon. "My responsibility. I can’t change that. You understand, don’t you?” After a pause, Kaylee nodded and turned to the engine, away from her man. She didn't want him to see the fearful look that stayed on her face at the thought of being pursued through the ship by a vengeful River Tam.