This is the last part of my first multi-chapter fanfic. Feedback is shiny and let me know if the last paragraph makes sense. I was trying to be clever, so the good lord only knows if it worked. Thanks to all for your great comments!

***

Mal couldn’t remember the last time he had been this content. It was the honest truth; he had tried over the past week to wrack his brain for the memory and every time a good one came floating to the surface, he realized it paled in comparison.

Rolling over with a sigh, he came face to face with Inara’s sleeping form. Reaching out a gentle hand he stroked the side of her face gently trying his best not to wake her. Although if she awoke, then they could … but no, Mal would wait for another chance to physically express how much he loved this woman.

Not that they had been at a loss for intimacy since leaving the ship. They had attempted to venture out of the hotel suite he had rented a few times, but each effort failed miserably and within an hour they were back in the room, tearing each other’s clothes off and begging the other not to stop.

But it was more than that, at least it was to Mal. It was being close to another human being. He had never had that, not with a woman. Sure, he was close to Zoe, had shared things with her he had never and could never share with Inara, and while he loved Zoe, he felt a myriad of other emotions for the young woman lying next to him. Love, warmth, safety, comfort, joy, sadness, happiness – it was all there, the entire package and he had finally woken up to see it.

He was still tracing a gentle line along her cheek bone when her eyes fluttered open to meet his gaze. She smiled at him and brought up a hand to grab his, kissing his palm and snuggling closer. Mal wrapped his arms around her and sighed again, more content then the moment before. He knew eventually they would have to emerge from this room and go back to the ship and the real world that awaited them. But they would steer there way through those waters when the time came.

An incessant beeping from the comm across the room brought that reality crashing in around them. Awake and alert instantly, Mal crossed the room in a few quick steps muttering a Chinese curse as he went. He had only told Zoe where he would be and for emergencies only. If she was calling him it meant something bad and Mal didn’t want to think about bad things right now.

He flipped on the screen, but kept his camera off. No point having Zoe seeing him in the all together. “Zoe?”

“Sir,” Zoe acknowledged, her brow furrowing slightly as she realized she couldn’t see him and he was going to keep it that way. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

“That’s all right,” Mal sighed, taking the pants Inara brought to him as he carried on his conversation. Pulling them on, he said, “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s important.”

“It’s Kaylee and Simon, sir,” she told him, and at that both Mal and Inara stiffened. “They’ve been kidnapped.”

Another violent Mandarin curse escaped his lips and was echoed by the companion at his side. “Where are they? Who has them,” she asked, a fear in her eyes that Mal did not like to see.

“We’re not sure, but from what River can tell us, I think it has to be Marcus.”

“That {slimy, double-crossing no good son of a motherless},” Mal bit out. “We’ll be back to the ship in an hour. I want you to take Jayne and head into town. Ask around and see if there might be some folks there who have any idea where Marcus could have taken them.” Or what he might do with them, Mal wanted to add, but stopped himself as he felt Inara’s small hand squeeze his arm in fright.

“What about River, sir?”

“Tell her she stays put and locks the door behind you. If she even thinks of going off after her brother, tell her I won’t let her fly Serenity ever again.” With that threat out, Mal abruptly flipped off the screen. Turning to face Inara, he saw her expression focused far away as small tears made their way down her cheeks.

“Shh, bao bei,” Mal told her softly, pulling her into a hug. Still in shock, Inara could barely wrap her arms around him. “We’ll get them back. I’m not letting anything happen to Kaylee,” he assured her. Taking just a few seconds more to comfort her, he released her slowly and said, “Come on, hon, we gotta go.”

***

Kaylee had heard stories about torture and captivity. Growing up on a border moon they were a perfectly acceptable form of campfire story to tell to a group of small children in the middle of a wood with odd animal noises coming out of the dark. She had even gleaned some details from both Wash and Captain after they had been taken by Niska. What she had seen then had chilled her to the core, almost as much as what she had imagined when she was just a girl listening to the stories.

But there was no way Kaylee would ever have been prepared for the fear that torture entailed. She almost wished they’d hit her. Then maybe she could pass out and not have to worry about Simon or the rest of the crew or wonder how long she had to live.

Instead of physical abuse, they had shoved her in a small and dark room, hands tied behind her back. Threatening all kinds of deviousness if she even tried to scream, Kaylee was sitting, back against the wall biting her lip in an effort not to cry. Every few minutes she would hear a muffled sound from the next room and she knew it was Simon. That man, Marcus, had wanted him. In the mercenary’s mind, Simon was the one who had welched on their deal. Catching him with his girl just meant he had more ammunition to use against the young man.

Don’t believe him, Simon, Kaylee thought desperately, wishing that just once she had River’s ability to read minds. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me, just fight him.

All the lip biting in the world couldn’t stop her tears as she heard a particularly loud and violent exchange that ended with a sickening thud from the next room. Oh, Simon.

***

Simon was waiting impatiently for unconsciousness to strike. He had quite enough of the big man’s heavy handed blows and he would be grateful when he finally sunk into darkness. The only thought that kept his eyes from closing was Kaylee. He was scared beyond reason that if he passed out, they would take out the rest of their aggression on his beautiful girl and that was something he couldn’t stomach.

“You core dandies and your big egos,” Marcus told him, circling the boy who was crouched on his knees, panting heavily and spitting blood. “You think you can just make a deal with an upstanding business man like myself and then blast off, without a word?”

“As I’ve already tried to explain,” Simon bit out, trying to ignore the pain from his swollen lips. “Our mechanic was ill. We had to leave immediately or she could have died.”

“Then why did your {idiot} of a captain tell me it was mechanical troubles,” Marcus roared, crossing the distance to the man and swatting him soundly across the face. Simon bit his tongue again and swore hard.

“I don’t know why,” Simon yelled back. Turning fiery eyes on the man, he said, “Why don’t you ask him for yourself?”

Grunting, Marcus crossed the room and picked up a rag by the door, wiping Simon’s blood from his hands. “Or maybe I’ll just ask the girl.”

“She doesn’t know anything,” Simon told him, trying to keep the fear from his voice. “She was the one who was sick. She was unconscious for the whole thing.”

“Maybe we’ll just see about that,” Marcus intoned menacingly and headed for the door.

Releasing another violent curse, Simon began to panic. If anything happened to Kaylee, he would kill Mal himself.

***

Some criminal masterminds were incorrigibly stupid. That was River’s opinion anyway. Having been on Serenity for almost two years, she had run in to quite a few of the Captain’s shadier acquaintances and had never been impressed with any of them from a planning, execution or strategy standpoint. They could be intimidating, Niska had been nothing to laugh at, but otherwise, they were sorely idiotic.

Zoe had warned her of what the captain would do if she thought about rescuing Simon herself, but she had ignored the first mate, perfectly content and capable to strike out on her own and find her brother and Kaylee. Simon’s pain was like a beacon to River, glowing brighter than any star in the dark and she followed it from the ship, through the surrounding wood to a dark cabin in a secluded clearing.

As she approached, she took out two sentry guards who were also painfully inept. Nearing the cabin, she saw the faint buttery glow of lights inside the rooms and stopping for a moment cocked her head to the side, listening. Simon’s pain still radiated towards her and through her, given her a clear picture of where he was, but she knew his priority would be Kaylee and so now the mechanic was River’s priority as well.

She circled the back of the cabin and saw a few windows made of Earth-that-was glass if her memory could be trusted. That meant it would break easily, but also make noise and River could not afford the added attention. While she was more than any threat for the three man-apes inside, the element of surprise was a tactical advantage one never ceded if one could help it. And River could help it.

Of course, there would be a back door. Again, the captor’s inability to plan would be his undoing. Almost feeling sorry for him, River roughly shoved the door open, putting all the weight of her lithe frame behind the push and entering the cabin with barely a whisper.

It was easy to find Kaylee. Once River had blocked out Simon’s pain, the mechanic’s fear had become a throbbing pulse in her head and in her heart, telling her exactly where the girl was and that she was frightened, frightened beyond belief. Almost as frightened as the night Early had invaded their home. While River could identify with the fear she couldn’t empathize with the girl. Of course, the fact that River could see the future and the subsequent outcome gave her a definite advantage.

The door to Kaylee’s prison was locked and River again managed to push it open, forcing herself to knock her shoulder against the hard wood mightily. At her sudden entrance, Kaylee gasped audibly and blinked quickly, her eyes having trouble adjusting to the sudden intrusion of light, however dim. Recognition came within in seconds, “River? What are you—“

“No power in the ‘verse,” she told the girl, and reaching out, River undid her bindings and took her hand, leading Kaylee from the room. “Stay back,” she warned, glancing behind her and poking her heard around the corner.

There was one more guard to dispense with and then the big man, the “mastermind” of the whole operation, if River could even call him that. She was sorely doubting the presence of any mind, master of otherwise. Motioning Kaylee to stay still and keep quiet, River was around the bend and out of sight before Kaylee could even blink. She heard a loud thud and jumped at the noise despite herself.

Daring to look, Kaylee saw that River had dropped the guard, leaving him sprawled at the door’s threshold and had entered the room. Just when she was about to venture forward a hand on her arm froze her in her tracks.

***

“Well, well, who is this bit of thing,” Marcus asked. He had wanted to give the boy time to recover, and was just about to see how much information he could get out of the girl, when another girl, one he did not recognize, came bursting into the room. Over her small shoulders, he could see his guard on the floor, knocked out cold and Marcus swore under his breath. Just another example of being unable to find good help in this part of the ‘verse.

“River,” Simon questioned, his eyes adjusting quickly to the light. “What are you doing here?”

“Found you,” she told him, and with no fanfare, struck out at Marcus, landing a swift and hard hand to his throat. Gagging the larger man went down to one knee clawing the air around him and reaching for River. With another thrust, she put her boot in his gut and sent a closed fisted punch across his face, knocking the man unconscious.

It happened in the blink of an eye and all Simon could do was watch in awe. As soon as Marcus hit the ground, River rushed forward and untied him. Helping him to stand, she said, “Come on, we’ve got to go. The captain’s gonna be mad if he gets back and I’m gone.”

Rounding the door jamb, they both stopped dead in their tracks at the site. Mal and Inara stood facing them, Mal’s gun pointed in their general direction while Kaylee rested her head against Inara’s shoulder, still shivering from fear.

Seeing River, Mal let out a string of Mandarin that would have made even a freighter hauler blush. “Gorramit, girl,” he yelled, lowering his gun and replacing it in the holder at his hip. “I thought I told you to stay on the ship?”

Meeting his gaze, which was more relieved than riled, she told him simply, “I don’t follow orders very well.”

And with that the five of them left the house, quickly returning to Serenity and getting the bird in the air.

***

Simon awoke a few hours later in his room, a warm blanket over him and a tightness to his face and upper body that was achy, uncomfortable and down right painful. Blinking open his eyes, well eye, as his right lid was swollen shut, the room slowly came into focus. And so did the girl sitting beside him, wiping his face with a wet washcloth and quietly humming to him.

Reaching up he took her hand in his and croaked, “Kaylee? Did he hurt you?”

She had tears in her eyes, but Simon could tell they were more of relief than pain. “No, sweetie, just wanted to scare me is all. It looks like you got the brunt of the hurtin’.”

Simon tried to smile at her and winced at the new pains it elicited. “I’ll be all right,” he reassured, still holding her hand. “No broken bones, just some cuts and bruises.”

“Yep, that was the same assessment Zoe gave ya, once we got back on board,” Kaylee confirmed, leaning down to dip the rag she held in the bowl of water at her feet. “Mal blasted off of that planet as fast as can be and River said everything’d be okay and --"

Kaylee was talking fast and not looking him in the eye which told Simon she was just stalling, trying to think of a way to avoid what was really bothering her. As she continued to tell him nothing in particular, he reached again for her hand and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her in a tight embrace. She tensed at first and then sunk into him, dropping the cloth and sliding her arms around his neck. It took a few minutes, but soon she was crying pent up tears of fear, anxiety and relief.

“It’s okay, bao bei,” he whispered into her hair, kissing her temple and rubbing her back gently. “We’re okay.”

They stayed like that for a while, until Kaylee’s tears were spent and then she rolled over to his side, their arms still entwined and they both fell fast asleep, content to stay as close as they could.

***

“Never catch a break, do we?”

The voice startled her and Inara looked up from her tea to see Mal enter her shuttle, uninvited. Some things would never change – of course, it really wasn’t her shuttle, not anymore.

Smiling at him faintly, she said, “It has been an interesting few weeks.”

“That it has,” he sighed as he sat at the other end of the shuttle’s only couch. After Inara had moved out and taken all her pretty silks with her, Mal had refitted the shuttle a bit so it could be used as a guest room, should the passenger dorms get too crowded. With Simon and River making their home down there, space was at a premium.

They sat in a companionable silence that quickly turned tense. Disrupted from their week of escapism, they’d had no time to discuss the future and the thought of it weighed heavily on them both. The next steps were laden with meaning and would greatly alter both their paths.

It was Inara who gathered her courage first. “Mal, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”

Mal hated any sentence from her that started with those words, but he tried to hide his grimace. Scooting down the soft bench, he got close enough to take her hand and said, “Okay.” He tried to ignore the sudden dryness in his mouth.

“I haven’t been – I didn’t,” she stuttered, which made him even more nervous. Inara was a woman of both incomparable grace and incomparable beauty. She never stumbled over what to say or when to say it. This could be bad. “I haven’t had a client since I left the ship.”

Of all the things Mal had thought she might say, that statement hadn’t even made the very long list. Trying to hide his surprise and unbridled glee, he squeezed her hand and said, “Can I ask why?”

Turning a completely annoyed look on him that he knew all too well, she muttered, “You know perfectly well why. I couldn’t do it, because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

This statement made Mal as giddy as a schoolboy and he really didn’t care to keep it from her. Pulling her into a tight embrace he said, “”Nara, that’s wonderful. Well, I mean, I’m glad that …” Pulling back to look at her he said, “Is there any statement I can make right now that won’t get me slapped?”

Despite her previous annoyance, Inara smiled at him and kissed him firmly on the mouth, letting her emotions fill the kiss. It quickly turned into something more, and as he laid her back on the couch, Mal was secretly grateful he had remembered to shut and lock the shuttle’s door.

Pausing for a moment to catch their breath, Mal gazed down at Inara’s face and just stared for a few moments. Returning the look, she whispered, “Where do we go from here?”

Kissing her again, with just a brush of the lips, Mal whispered in her ear, “Out into the black, darlin’. Out into the black.”

***

River sat in the middle of the ship’s cargo bay, drawing. On her tablet were two trees, with bright green leaves. In one were two people, a man and a woman and unmistakably the Captain and Inara. In the other were another man and woman, unmistakably her brother and Kaylee. Humming an old tune to herself, she continued sketching, drawing in hearts, wedding bands and a baby carriage.

***

The End