Fic: Down this Chain of Days, Chapter 5 (Firefly, River/Mal, PG-13)
Title: Down this Chain of Days: V. The Harm that Here I've Done
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2640
Pairings: River/Mal, Simon/Kaylee
Summary: For Mal and River, 'happily ever after' takes some work - especially when people from their past keep turning up.
V. The Harm that Here I've Done
“Going somewhere, doc?” It's a fairly novel sight, Simon doing his best to sneak across the cargo bay, what with him generally being the one with the least need for sneaking around on the boat. Though, Mal reflects, that might explain why he's none too good at it.
Simon starts a bit, though it takes one who knows him to notice it - he reminds Mal of Inara in that way, both of 'em too well bred and too well trained to give away much in the way of emotion. “You...aren't supposed to be here,” Simon says, one hand going up to smooth down the back of his hair, way he always does when he gets nervous.
“And who says I ain't supposed to be in my own ship? Did it change hands without my noticing, maybe?”
“No, River just promised that - that you'd be out of the way.”
“Seems your sister's not quite as clever as she thinks. Either that or you were slower than you oughta be, but either way, you mind tellin' me why you're looking to avoid me?”
Simon smiles, thin and humorless. “I wouldn't be trying to avoid you if I wanted to tell you, would I?” Mal's got a thing or two to say about that - he don't like to accept that kind of circular logic from the Tam he's sleeping with, much less the one he ain't - but Simon shakes his head and gets back to speaking himself. “Look, I explained things to Zoë, and to Kaylee, and I assure you, we've taken all the necessary precautions. River and I are going into town, we should be back in a few hours at the most, and that's all I'm going to tell you.”
“Okay...” Mal says, trying hard to keep a rein on his temper. “You care to tell me why you can't tell me, at least?” Turns out that wasn't really necessary to ask though, seeing as how a flutter of dark hair and loose skirt at the outside door tells him what he needs to know. “She don't want me to know.”
Simon shrugs helplessly. “Look, Mal, I told her she ought to tell you, but - you know River.”
“That I do,” Mal says, fighting to keep his voice level as he turns away, of a mind now to go and seek out his first mate, who at least isn't the type to keep secrets from him. “And from the way you're acting, I can bet this trip of yours ain't gonna involve anything pleasant for me, so you can tell River me and her are gonna have a little chat when y'all get back, dong ma?”
“Terrific,” Simon mutters, walking off to join his sister on whatever grand secret mission they got going on, while Mal makes his way along the catwalk, trying to keep his blood from boiling out his ears. Woman knows full well secrets are one thing he can't abide - not wanting to talk about something is one thing, but sneaking 'round behind his back is another sort of thing entirely - and yet there she goes, gallivanting off, probably doing some gorram stupid thing that's gonna put her right in harm's way.
“Zoë!” he yells, taking the steps up to the bridge two at a time, only to be confronted with her and Kaylee sitting up there, calm as can be. “Oh, you're...here. That's good. Good,” he says, trying to get control of both his breathing and his mood.
“Something got your feathers ruffled there, Captain?” Zoë asks, a bit of a smirk breaking through her deadpan expression.
“My feathers are fine, thank you very much. One of you want to explain to me why my boat's suddenly down a doctor and a pilot and nobody wants to tell me a damn thing about it?”
“Well, sir,” Zoë says, standing up and glancing down at Kaylee, who's looking down at the screens and not paying attention to anything else, “seems River came across their father in town the other day, promised that she'd bring Simon 'round to see him. So that's where they've set off to now. I warned against using any names might lead back to us, and Kaylee set 'em up with tracking beacons, case anything should go wrong.”
“Their father's here on Persephone? Something of a trip from Osiris.” Mal's never thought much about the senior Tams, really, except maybe a vague thought that they couldn't be worth much as people, way they were more concerned with saving their own skins than their children's. Certainly he's never expected either of them to come into his orbit. “Why in the 'verse would she not wanna tell me that? She must know I'd have gone with her, kept her safe.”
“Think maybe that's exactly what she was afraid of,” she says, awfully gently for Zoë. “It's family business, sir. Likely they just wanted to...handle it on their own, without any of us barging in there. River'd never lead Simon into anything she didn't think was safe, you know that.”
Mal looks out the windows and shakes his head, letting out a dry laugh that falls flat before it's even out of his mouth. “Yeah, I know it. Wouldn't want us barging in, I can see that. Bunch of petty crooks like us, prob'ly wouldn't look too good to their father.”
“Don't think that's what she meant, sir,” Zoë says solidly, forcing him to meet her eye. There's nobody on the ship less conscious of class and appearance than River, truth be told, except maybe Jayne. Still, it's about the only reason he can conjure for her slipping away like that, without giving him so much as a warning.
“No,” he admits, “reckon it ain't.” Still, he notices Kaylee hasn't looked up from the console, hasn't contributed a word to the conversation, which, for that girl, is damn strange. “Zoë,” he says, taking a deep breath and trying to let the rest of his anger drain away, leastways til River gets back on board safe, “take Jayne, head out in the shuttle, and keep track of 'em. And make sure you're well armed, don't want you running into any trouble you can't handle.”
“Sir? River seemed pretty certain of the belief that-”
“She might trust him, but that don't mean I have to. I don't have a mind to be losin' anyone today, so best get Jayne and get yourselves out there. Hate not havin' her on my boat.”
“She'll be fine, Mal,” Zoë says, putting a hand to his shoulder in passing. “Jayne 'n I'll make sure of it.”
“What? No, I just meant cause with my pilot gone I gotta stay here in case there's quick flyin' needed, miss out on all the action.”
“Of course, sir.” She's got her deadpan face back in place now, but there's still something a little ironical in her tone.
“Really!” he calls after her, as she heads off down the crew passage in search of Jayne and weapons, two things generally found together. “In fact, you have to shoot anybody, make sure you shoot 'em twice for me!”
She waves a hand back at him in an awfully dismissive manner, letting him know he ain't fooled her for one second, before she moves out of sight.
“Hate not havin' her here,” he grumbles, settling himself in the pilot's chair.
“Cause she's the pilot,” Kaylee says, looking at him outta the corner of her eye.
“Right, cause she's the pilot. I ain't worried, Kaylee. Really. Hell, I'm mad at the girl, don't have room to be worrying about her on top of that.”
“Uh huh. Whatever you say, Cap'n,” she says, tapping at the screens til she's got the Tams' beacons up on the screen, making slow and steady progress in a reassuring fashion. The sigh she lets out as she settles herself down in River's seat isn't so reassuring, though.
“Hey now, what's that for?” he asks, catching sight of an expression far off Kaylee's usual ridiculous cheer. “Don't tell me you're worried 'bout the doc. You know the way those two take care of each other.”
“Ain't worried anything's gonna happen to them,” she says, picking at a frayed patch on her overalls. “It's just that - well, you know Simon's never been too comfy here. Took him more'n a year to relax enough to even notice I had girl parts.”
“Oh, I'm fairly certain he noticed that fact right off. Just took his sweet time 'bout acting on it.”
“Things were goin' so well.” There's a faint bit of confusion in her voice, like she's waiting on him to insist they still are. “And now this.”
The com buzzes softly with Zoë's voice then, as she and Jayne take off in the shuttle, and by the time Mal looks back to Kaylee she's sitting there with that little patch pulled right off, laying in her hand. A heart, he notices, and he can't help wondering if she'd picked away at that one on purpose.
“What if they don't come back, Mal?” she asks finally, her voice so soft it's like she thinks saying it out loud might make it come true.
“What? Course they'll be coming back,” he says, putting all the confidence he's suddenly not too sure he's really feeling into his words. “All their stuff's here,” he points out, trying to get a smile outta her, trying to ignore the sudden chill in his bones.
Her face doesn't lighten though, not a bit. “He never wanted to stay here, not really. Used to talk all the time 'bout how different this life was to livin' in the Core. They ain't like us, the two of them. Used to livin' lives with more certainty to 'em. With fancy things and proper ways of behavin'.”
“Hey now,” he says, waiting till she looks up at him with her eyes gone all big and shiny, letting him know if he doesn't do something quick he's like to end up with a sniffly mechanic who's got eyes too swollen up to see. “We got plenty of good right here on this ship, dong ma? Simon and River ain't foolish enough that they don't know that. Not so easy as all that, goin' back to the life you used to lead, after you've been through a war like that.”
He doesn't even realize what he's said till Kaylee's soft voice repeats it. “A war, Cap'n?”
“Seemed close enough to war, what we went through after Miranda,” he says, watching the beacons on the screen so he doesn't have to look at her.
Silence spreads heavy across the bridge, before she breaks it, her voice steady but seeming over-loud after the quiet. “He asked me to marry him, Mal.”
“He asked you to what?” The jump to total and utter shock, after having gone through anger and fear so recently, is really too much to ask of a man, he thinks.
“Ain't so unbelievable as all that,” she says, her voice full of all kinds of shakes and sniffles.
“No, no, of course not, mei mei,” he says in a rush. “That's not what I meant. Just surprised that this is the first I heard of it, is all.”
Kaylee laughs, a tiny little fragile bit of sound. “We were waitin' to hear back from my folks, make sure they knew first and approved and everythin'. I guess that's how they do it in the Core - Simon says both sets of parents oughta be notified of a match and get a chance to 'express their approval,' or some kind of nonsense like that. He said his parents don't matter, but we oughta do it right with mine.” She sets her little heart patch down on the console, smoothing it out with her fingers, tracing round the edges. “So we were waitin' to tell everybody. River knew, but nobody else.”
Another secret River'd been keeping from him then, though he didn't blame her so much when it wasn't her secret to keep. “Well congratulations, sweetheart,” he says, trying and failing to imagine his little mechanic settled down and married, likely with a whole passel of babies messing around in his ship's engine before long. “I know how long it was you waited for him, and nobody who saw the way you two carry on could have any doubt as to how you feel 'bout each other.”
She shrugs, watching the unmoving glowing dot that represents Simon. “Maybe it ain't gonna matter none. Not like he wanted to take me out to meet his daddy, right?” Watching her furiously rub the heel of her hand over her eyes, Mal's horrified to realize she's finally crying. “Maybe you were right, when you said we wouldn't look good enough for 'em.”
“Oh, come on,” he says, moving to crouch down in front of her, taking her hands in his. “I was just bein' a grumpy old man when I said that, you and I both know there's no actual truth in it. Don't know about me, but I do know you're damn well good enough for any man. And you can be sure Simon knows it too.”
The tears in her eyes spill over as he watches, and then he's got no choice as he sees it but to hold her, hope she gets a hold of herself before she soaks right through his shirt.
It's a fortunate thing that Kaylee's naturally cheerful, even the worst things never getting her down for too long, cause that means she stops crying pretty quick, even if she don't seem too inclined to let go of him just yet. “You're good enough too,” she says, her voice small and muffled against his shoulder. “But you know if one of 'em goes, they both will.”
“Those two always were somethin' of a package deal,” he says, trying to keep his tone light, trying not to think about River having to make a choice between him and Simon. He suspects it'd be something like his needing to make a choice between River and Serenity, and that's none too comforting, cause love River as he might, he knows full well what his choice would be. “But they'll come back together,” he insists, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “Got a lot more here to bring 'em back than anything pulling them away.”
Kaylee's silent for a minute, before he feels her go stiff, her fingers digging into his back. “They're runnin'.”
“Now, Kaylee, we just talked this over-”
“No, Cap'n,” she says, pulling away and pointing to the screen. “They're running.”
If he'd thought he had his stomach in his throat before, it's nothing compared to the feeling he gets looking at the screen, where the two little dots are moving fast. Too fast for a leisurely stroll back to Serenity, and in the wrong direction to boot.
“Ai ya, huai le.” Mal makes a grab for the radio, wishing like hell he were out there where he could do something. “Zoë, report.”
“Looks like we've got ourselves something of a situation, sir,” comes over the radio, followed shortly by the sound of gunfire, and the dull impact of metal on bone as Mal slams his fist down, into the console.
Chapter 4 - Master Post - Chapter 6
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2640
Pairings: River/Mal, Simon/Kaylee
Summary: For Mal and River, 'happily ever after' takes some work - especially when people from their past keep turning up.
V. The Harm that Here I've Done
“Going somewhere, doc?” It's a fairly novel sight, Simon doing his best to sneak across the cargo bay, what with him generally being the one with the least need for sneaking around on the boat. Though, Mal reflects, that might explain why he's none too good at it.
Simon starts a bit, though it takes one who knows him to notice it - he reminds Mal of Inara in that way, both of 'em too well bred and too well trained to give away much in the way of emotion. “You...aren't supposed to be here,” Simon says, one hand going up to smooth down the back of his hair, way he always does when he gets nervous.
“And who says I ain't supposed to be in my own ship? Did it change hands without my noticing, maybe?”
“No, River just promised that - that you'd be out of the way.”
“Seems your sister's not quite as clever as she thinks. Either that or you were slower than you oughta be, but either way, you mind tellin' me why you're looking to avoid me?”
Simon smiles, thin and humorless. “I wouldn't be trying to avoid you if I wanted to tell you, would I?” Mal's got a thing or two to say about that - he don't like to accept that kind of circular logic from the Tam he's sleeping with, much less the one he ain't - but Simon shakes his head and gets back to speaking himself. “Look, I explained things to Zoë, and to Kaylee, and I assure you, we've taken all the necessary precautions. River and I are going into town, we should be back in a few hours at the most, and that's all I'm going to tell you.”
“Okay...” Mal says, trying hard to keep a rein on his temper. “You care to tell me why you can't tell me, at least?” Turns out that wasn't really necessary to ask though, seeing as how a flutter of dark hair and loose skirt at the outside door tells him what he needs to know. “She don't want me to know.”
Simon shrugs helplessly. “Look, Mal, I told her she ought to tell you, but - you know River.”
“That I do,” Mal says, fighting to keep his voice level as he turns away, of a mind now to go and seek out his first mate, who at least isn't the type to keep secrets from him. “And from the way you're acting, I can bet this trip of yours ain't gonna involve anything pleasant for me, so you can tell River me and her are gonna have a little chat when y'all get back, dong ma?”
“Terrific,” Simon mutters, walking off to join his sister on whatever grand secret mission they got going on, while Mal makes his way along the catwalk, trying to keep his blood from boiling out his ears. Woman knows full well secrets are one thing he can't abide - not wanting to talk about something is one thing, but sneaking 'round behind his back is another sort of thing entirely - and yet there she goes, gallivanting off, probably doing some gorram stupid thing that's gonna put her right in harm's way.
“Zoë!” he yells, taking the steps up to the bridge two at a time, only to be confronted with her and Kaylee sitting up there, calm as can be. “Oh, you're...here. That's good. Good,” he says, trying to get control of both his breathing and his mood.
“Something got your feathers ruffled there, Captain?” Zoë asks, a bit of a smirk breaking through her deadpan expression.
“My feathers are fine, thank you very much. One of you want to explain to me why my boat's suddenly down a doctor and a pilot and nobody wants to tell me a damn thing about it?”
“Well, sir,” Zoë says, standing up and glancing down at Kaylee, who's looking down at the screens and not paying attention to anything else, “seems River came across their father in town the other day, promised that she'd bring Simon 'round to see him. So that's where they've set off to now. I warned against using any names might lead back to us, and Kaylee set 'em up with tracking beacons, case anything should go wrong.”
“Their father's here on Persephone? Something of a trip from Osiris.” Mal's never thought much about the senior Tams, really, except maybe a vague thought that they couldn't be worth much as people, way they were more concerned with saving their own skins than their children's. Certainly he's never expected either of them to come into his orbit. “Why in the 'verse would she not wanna tell me that? She must know I'd have gone with her, kept her safe.”
“Think maybe that's exactly what she was afraid of,” she says, awfully gently for Zoë. “It's family business, sir. Likely they just wanted to...handle it on their own, without any of us barging in there. River'd never lead Simon into anything she didn't think was safe, you know that.”
Mal looks out the windows and shakes his head, letting out a dry laugh that falls flat before it's even out of his mouth. “Yeah, I know it. Wouldn't want us barging in, I can see that. Bunch of petty crooks like us, prob'ly wouldn't look too good to their father.”
“Don't think that's what she meant, sir,” Zoë says solidly, forcing him to meet her eye. There's nobody on the ship less conscious of class and appearance than River, truth be told, except maybe Jayne. Still, it's about the only reason he can conjure for her slipping away like that, without giving him so much as a warning.
“No,” he admits, “reckon it ain't.” Still, he notices Kaylee hasn't looked up from the console, hasn't contributed a word to the conversation, which, for that girl, is damn strange. “Zoë,” he says, taking a deep breath and trying to let the rest of his anger drain away, leastways til River gets back on board safe, “take Jayne, head out in the shuttle, and keep track of 'em. And make sure you're well armed, don't want you running into any trouble you can't handle.”
“Sir? River seemed pretty certain of the belief that-”
“She might trust him, but that don't mean I have to. I don't have a mind to be losin' anyone today, so best get Jayne and get yourselves out there. Hate not havin' her on my boat.”
“She'll be fine, Mal,” Zoë says, putting a hand to his shoulder in passing. “Jayne 'n I'll make sure of it.”
“What? No, I just meant cause with my pilot gone I gotta stay here in case there's quick flyin' needed, miss out on all the action.”
“Of course, sir.” She's got her deadpan face back in place now, but there's still something a little ironical in her tone.
“Really!” he calls after her, as she heads off down the crew passage in search of Jayne and weapons, two things generally found together. “In fact, you have to shoot anybody, make sure you shoot 'em twice for me!”
She waves a hand back at him in an awfully dismissive manner, letting him know he ain't fooled her for one second, before she moves out of sight.
“Hate not havin' her here,” he grumbles, settling himself in the pilot's chair.
“Cause she's the pilot,” Kaylee says, looking at him outta the corner of her eye.
“Right, cause she's the pilot. I ain't worried, Kaylee. Really. Hell, I'm mad at the girl, don't have room to be worrying about her on top of that.”
“Uh huh. Whatever you say, Cap'n,” she says, tapping at the screens til she's got the Tams' beacons up on the screen, making slow and steady progress in a reassuring fashion. The sigh she lets out as she settles herself down in River's seat isn't so reassuring, though.
“Hey now, what's that for?” he asks, catching sight of an expression far off Kaylee's usual ridiculous cheer. “Don't tell me you're worried 'bout the doc. You know the way those two take care of each other.”
“Ain't worried anything's gonna happen to them,” she says, picking at a frayed patch on her overalls. “It's just that - well, you know Simon's never been too comfy here. Took him more'n a year to relax enough to even notice I had girl parts.”
“Oh, I'm fairly certain he noticed that fact right off. Just took his sweet time 'bout acting on it.”
“Things were goin' so well.” There's a faint bit of confusion in her voice, like she's waiting on him to insist they still are. “And now this.”
The com buzzes softly with Zoë's voice then, as she and Jayne take off in the shuttle, and by the time Mal looks back to Kaylee she's sitting there with that little patch pulled right off, laying in her hand. A heart, he notices, and he can't help wondering if she'd picked away at that one on purpose.
“What if they don't come back, Mal?” she asks finally, her voice so soft it's like she thinks saying it out loud might make it come true.
“What? Course they'll be coming back,” he says, putting all the confidence he's suddenly not too sure he's really feeling into his words. “All their stuff's here,” he points out, trying to get a smile outta her, trying to ignore the sudden chill in his bones.
Her face doesn't lighten though, not a bit. “He never wanted to stay here, not really. Used to talk all the time 'bout how different this life was to livin' in the Core. They ain't like us, the two of them. Used to livin' lives with more certainty to 'em. With fancy things and proper ways of behavin'.”
“Hey now,” he says, waiting till she looks up at him with her eyes gone all big and shiny, letting him know if he doesn't do something quick he's like to end up with a sniffly mechanic who's got eyes too swollen up to see. “We got plenty of good right here on this ship, dong ma? Simon and River ain't foolish enough that they don't know that. Not so easy as all that, goin' back to the life you used to lead, after you've been through a war like that.”
He doesn't even realize what he's said till Kaylee's soft voice repeats it. “A war, Cap'n?”
“Seemed close enough to war, what we went through after Miranda,” he says, watching the beacons on the screen so he doesn't have to look at her.
Silence spreads heavy across the bridge, before she breaks it, her voice steady but seeming over-loud after the quiet. “He asked me to marry him, Mal.”
“He asked you to what?” The jump to total and utter shock, after having gone through anger and fear so recently, is really too much to ask of a man, he thinks.
“Ain't so unbelievable as all that,” she says, her voice full of all kinds of shakes and sniffles.
“No, no, of course not, mei mei,” he says in a rush. “That's not what I meant. Just surprised that this is the first I heard of it, is all.”
Kaylee laughs, a tiny little fragile bit of sound. “We were waitin' to hear back from my folks, make sure they knew first and approved and everythin'. I guess that's how they do it in the Core - Simon says both sets of parents oughta be notified of a match and get a chance to 'express their approval,' or some kind of nonsense like that. He said his parents don't matter, but we oughta do it right with mine.” She sets her little heart patch down on the console, smoothing it out with her fingers, tracing round the edges. “So we were waitin' to tell everybody. River knew, but nobody else.”
Another secret River'd been keeping from him then, though he didn't blame her so much when it wasn't her secret to keep. “Well congratulations, sweetheart,” he says, trying and failing to imagine his little mechanic settled down and married, likely with a whole passel of babies messing around in his ship's engine before long. “I know how long it was you waited for him, and nobody who saw the way you two carry on could have any doubt as to how you feel 'bout each other.”
She shrugs, watching the unmoving glowing dot that represents Simon. “Maybe it ain't gonna matter none. Not like he wanted to take me out to meet his daddy, right?” Watching her furiously rub the heel of her hand over her eyes, Mal's horrified to realize she's finally crying. “Maybe you were right, when you said we wouldn't look good enough for 'em.”
“Oh, come on,” he says, moving to crouch down in front of her, taking her hands in his. “I was just bein' a grumpy old man when I said that, you and I both know there's no actual truth in it. Don't know about me, but I do know you're damn well good enough for any man. And you can be sure Simon knows it too.”
The tears in her eyes spill over as he watches, and then he's got no choice as he sees it but to hold her, hope she gets a hold of herself before she soaks right through his shirt.
It's a fortunate thing that Kaylee's naturally cheerful, even the worst things never getting her down for too long, cause that means she stops crying pretty quick, even if she don't seem too inclined to let go of him just yet. “You're good enough too,” she says, her voice small and muffled against his shoulder. “But you know if one of 'em goes, they both will.”
“Those two always were somethin' of a package deal,” he says, trying to keep his tone light, trying not to think about River having to make a choice between him and Simon. He suspects it'd be something like his needing to make a choice between River and Serenity, and that's none too comforting, cause love River as he might, he knows full well what his choice would be. “But they'll come back together,” he insists, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “Got a lot more here to bring 'em back than anything pulling them away.”
Kaylee's silent for a minute, before he feels her go stiff, her fingers digging into his back. “They're runnin'.”
“Now, Kaylee, we just talked this over-”
“No, Cap'n,” she says, pulling away and pointing to the screen. “They're running.”
If he'd thought he had his stomach in his throat before, it's nothing compared to the feeling he gets looking at the screen, where the two little dots are moving fast. Too fast for a leisurely stroll back to Serenity, and in the wrong direction to boot.
“Ai ya, huai le.” Mal makes a grab for the radio, wishing like hell he were out there where he could do something. “Zoë, report.”
“Looks like we've got ourselves something of a situation, sir,” comes over the radio, followed shortly by the sound of gunfire, and the dull impact of metal on bone as Mal slams his fist down, into the console.
Chapter 4 - Master Post - Chapter 6