*cracks a whip* back you beasts, back! here you go, now be satiated until i can come up with an ending! review pleaaaaaaaaaaaase, it makes my day! --------------------------------------------------

Being dead didn't really leave a body with much to do, Mal realized. Though he wasn't technically dead. Fact was, he was bored. "So how long does this usually take?" he asked Tracey, who was rummaging through the food lockers in the kitchen. Mal sat at the table, tapping his fingers absently on the worn wood. "How long's it gonna take to get a simple concept through your thick skull?" he replied, peeling open a protein bar and nibbling on it. Making a face, he threw it back into the locker. "Nope, doesn't even taste good when you're dead." "Can't I just say that I get it and blah blah blah? I got certain captain-y things I'd rather be doing than sitting here having a tea party with you." "You've got to feel it, and they need to be certain that you're going to live it as well." Tracey settled for some tea instead. Mal made a face. "They teach you all this touchy-feely stuff in dead guy school? You certainly didn't live like you're talkin' when you were alive." "Death teaches you certain lessons Mal. And when you humped life as good as I did, you see how dumb it is to let others make the same mistakes." "And you don't have a choice in the matter." "True." Tracey jumped a bit as he burned his tounge on the hot tea. "How can you burn yourself if you're dead an' all?" Mal asked curiously. "Come to think of it, how can you eat at all?" "Death is a mystery Cap'n." Tracey grinned. "Not one I'm too keen on gettin' friendly with." Zoe entered, apparently as oblivious as everyone else to the two spirits sitting at the table. She poured herself a cup of tea, then continued out the door to the infirmary. Mal stared after her, mouth hanging open. It looked like Zoe had been...crying? That was impossible. She'd never cried in the war. Even after Wash died, she hadn't shed a tear. Had been mighty creepifying at first, but then he figured it was just her way. So what had gotten her so upset that she allowed herself to cry? He jumped up from the table and ran after her, Tracey lollygagging behind. Zoe stood beside her captain, mug of tea steaming in her hand. To his surprise, she was shaking. Abruptly, she collapsed on the stool and started crying again, silently, so no one could hear. Something wasn't right though. Mal squinted and turned his head, trying to figure it out. "Tracey, is my first mate...glowing?" he asked slowly. It seemed as if there was a faint golden glow shimmering around her that flickered in and out as she sobbed. Tracey nodded. "And why exactly is she glowing?" "Some call it the glow of motherhood." His guide explained. "Basically, normal people can't see it, but they can feel it. Here in our world, when two auras combine, they can cause a body to 'glow' as you put it." Mal stood shell-shocked. "Wait...mother...hood?" Tracey briefly thought that the captain looked like a fish with his mouth floppin' open like that. "Yes Mal. Motherhood. Usually happens after two people, who love each other very much-" "NO! I can't know that!" Mal slapped his hands over his ears like a two-year-old. "But Wash-" "Is dead." "So how-" "She's three months along Mal." "And she never told me?" he looked at Zoe, who had managed to calm herself enough to sip some tea. "Why?" "Ain't sure you're gonna let me keep the little one Sir," she replied. Mal jumped about three feet before he realized that she wasn't speaking to him. Well, she was speaking to him. But to his slightly dead self, not his self...self. "Ain't rightly sure I want to keep it either," she continued. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she rubbed her stomach absently. "You always said shipboard romances boded ill, and you were right Sir. Now Wash is gone and I've got a child with no Pa. Funny, I never thought to be in this situation. I bet you're not gonna want a lil' one on board anyways. And Wash was right, it ain't safe for a babe. But I can't leave you Sir, you get into too much trouble without me." Tears started coursing down her cheeks again. "I wish I could tell you Sir, wish you could tell me what to do." Laying her head down on the table, she began crying again. Mal swore that his heart broke in that very instant. "Oh Zoe," he found he was crying too. "I'm so sorry bao-bei. Of course I want you to have your baby, and sure it's going to muck things up, but we'll find a way. We always do." He laid a hand on her shoulder, wishing she could hear him. "I was wrong Zoe. I think I've been wrong about everything." Planting a kiss on the top of her head, he tore out the door to Inara's shuttle. " 'Nara!" he yelled as he ran in, then stopped short as if he had hit a wall. Boxes littered the floor, and Inara moved about, wrapping breakables and placing them gently into their compartments. The shuttle walls were bare, and the fabrics lay in piles in the corner. "What's going on?" Mal asked Tracey as he strolled in casually behind him. "What does it look like? She's leaving." "No ruttin' way is that woman leaving." Mal grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him off the ground. "You listen to me. I love that woman more than I have loved anyone in my entire life. I have spent years arguing with her, dealing with her...job, and I've stuck my foot in my mouth farther than even Simon Tam can around her more times than I can count. And you know what? I wouldn't trade any of it for all the money in the gorram 'verse. Fact is, we both finally got over ourselves enough to realize we two are meant to be, and I intend to spend the rest of my life making her the happiest woman alive. My living life, mind you. I also mean to walk lil' Kaylee down that aisle when she finally wrangles the doc into settlin' down, and to be a right proper stand-in for the lil' runt Zoe is going to have. So you go and tell whoever it is up there to put me back this very instant or I swear...to them...that I will make them very, very sorry. Dong ma?" "I don't suppose that this would be a very good time to tell you Jayne and River are sleeping together." Mal threw him to the ground. "What part of 'put me back right now' isn't clear you ching-wah tsao duh liou mahng?" Tracey looked up from the floor with the grin of a cat who has eaten the fattest, yellowest canary. "Shiny doin' business with you Cap'n." There was a rush of blackness, and then Mal knew no more.