Four short fictions less than 200 words each. Set post BDM.

Conflagration

River looked with delight at all the packages on her bed. At last she had done it!

Since Miranda she had become one of the team and had participated in several jobs, assiduously saving her cut.

Today she, Kaylee and a forcibly included Zoë had gone shopping. For the first time in her life, she had chosen, with her friends’ help, her own clothes.

She danced around the confined space piling up all her hated apparel. The too big dresses, droopy jumpers and little girl underwear were all bundled up and taken outside to where Kaylee had built a roaring fire.

This was a true ending to her previous self she thought as she hefted her clothes and threw them into the conflagration.

******************

Acceptance

Zoë sat beside the fire staring into the flames. She knew her friends were worried about her, it was nearly a year since Miranda and she was still bitter.

Bitter that Wash had died, she dreamt all the time of him dead there on the flight deck. She was bitter that she was still here, bitter ‘bout everything. Tired of such stupid behaviour she had allowed herself to be bullied into going shopping.

Surprisingly she had enjoyed her time with the other women. River’s pure delight in buying clothes that fitted had lifted Zoë’s spirits and Kaylee’s buoyant chatter about her love life had started her remembering.

Remembering times past, the fun, the loving, the fights she realised that this was how she should be remembering Wash, not with bitterness.

Determined, she hurled the memory of Wash’s death away and with it went her bitterness. Instead she would remember the man the way he truly was a funny, loving hero that she’d been proud to be married to.

*******************

Flew

“Looks like fun.” Mal remarked watching the women round the fire, pleased that Zoë had left her room first to go shopping and was now taking part in whatever strange thing they were doing.

“What are they doing anyway?”

“Burnin’ the girl’s clothes,” Jayne grinned at the Captain’s expression. “She bought some real kick-ass stuff today accordin’ to Kaylee.”

Mal’s jaw dropped as River approached them wearing the tightest pair of trousers ever put on a girl.

Jayne gave her a friendly leer “the bad guys are gonna be too busy lookin’ at ya to cause us any trouble. I may as well hang up my guns.”

She grinned at him and whirled gracefully in front of the Captain causing the straps on her little shirt to drop off her shoulders and all his preconceived ideas of River as a little girl flew into the fire.

******************

Sacrifice

“It’s not fair.” Jayne pouted.

“Is too fair,” Kaylee’s eyes were sparklin’ with fire. “I ain’t gonna have them in my sight.”

“They don’t mean nothin’.”

“Do too,” she put her hands on her hips. “They make me feel bad; I’m not as pretty as them.”

Jayne looked at her in shock. “Course ya are.”

“I am?” she looked at him doubtfully.

“Ten times more beautiful,” he vowed droppin’ the wadded up pictures, his past life, into the blaze, “’n’ heaps more sexy.”

Kaylee flung her arms round his neck, kissin’ him fiercely on the lips, Jayne kissin’ her just as fiercely back. Now their life together was really startin’.