Chapter 5: Call It Even
Wash was awake in the darkness when Zoë crept down the ladder and felt for the bed. "Hey, hon—everything okay?"
"As well as it can be," she assured him with a smile in her voice. "Mal's gonna be fine."
"That's good, lamby toes."
She shed her clothes quickly and slipped between the sheets. He pulled her to him.
She reached up in the dark and caressed his cheek. "I'm sorry today's been all about Mal, baby."
He gave her a tight squeeze. "He needed you today. Hell—we were all worried." He held her for a moment in silence. "I realized something tonight," he finally said. "I've been demanding that we plan on a time when we can be alone together, start a family maybe. But you can never leave here, can you, as long as Mal's here on Serenity? He's got too much of a hold on you."
"You make it sound like he's forcing me to stay," she accused.
"No—I don't mean it that way. It's just that he needs you. If we leave and then something happens to him, we'll live with his ghost forever. And he's enough of a torment alive—I can't imagine the tortures he could come up with if he were dead."
"I owe him my life—my sanity," Zoë said matter-of-factly.
"Me, too," Wash commented. "This isn't such a bad place." He pulled her close and explored her ear with his tongue.
She swatted at him affectionately and twisted around to face him. "Actually, I've been thinking about that," she said.
Mal woke late the next morning. He was eager to join the crew for lunch, but the doctor was determined to keep him in the infirmary. Simon thought to accomplish this by refusing to get the captain a pair of pants, a stratagem that ignored the fact that the captain had already appeared comfortably nude in front of the entire crew. Mal buttoned his shirt, threw his suspenders over his shoulders, and pulled his boots on. Lack of pants was not an obstacle.
However, a bullet hole in the thigh was something of a deterrent to roaming. He made it as far as the outer lounge before he felt a need to sit down. He eased himself down onto the sofa and, leaning his head against the seat back, closed his eyes.
"Captain? Could I have a word?"
"I thought I might get a few minutes, at least, before you all lined up to lecture me," Mal complained. He opened his eyes enough to glare at Shepherd Book. "What's on your mind, Preacher? You got another special hell you want to tell me about?"
Book sat stiffly on the far end of the sofa. "I'm beginning to think that you are far too well acquainted with all the special hells for me to presume to lecture you on any of them."
"That's a relief," Mal said with a smile. "The lectures were gettin' tiresome."
"Actually, Captain, I wanted to make an offer to you regarding Lily."
"We need to find a safer place for her."
"I know. I've been giving that some thought. She seemed to do well enough in the monastery orphanage. I could take her myself and set her up somewhere with my order. We're not without influence, and we're very discreet. She'd be as safe as she could be anywhere else."
"Safe in God's hands?" Mal sneered. "There's a certain uncomfortableness in that thought."
"Safe among men who would give their lives to protect her," Book countered.
"I have respect for that, Preacher—I do." He glanced away for a moment. "You might be asking the one thing I can't do. But I promise you I'll give it consideration."
Book stood and placed his hand on the captain's shoulder. "Just keep the girl's best interests in your heart, Mal. You'll make the right decision."
"I don't know," Mal replied, looking up. "I think there are nothing but wrong choices here. It's like war: if you fight the fight, you're going to lose soldiers. I'm sorely tired of losing soldiers, Preacher."
"People wouldn't trust you so if that weren't the case," Book assured him.
As soon as the preacher had gone, Mal realized he should have asked him to fetch him some pants.
Mal gathered his strength and his resolve for a few minutes and then began his assault on the stairs. Before he'd made it halfway, he'd been snapped at by the doctor and offered a carry (which he'd refused) from Jayne. A few minutes later, Inara came down the stairs with a pair of his pants over her arm.
"Your lack of pants is becoming a sensation," she said with a smile. "Half-dressed isn't a good look for you."
"I'm more of an all-or-nothin' kind of guy," he agreed. He eased himself down to the steps and pulled the pants on.
She sat down next to him. "Actually, I think it's the suspenders that spoil the look. Without anything to hold up, they just flap around."
He attached the suspenders to the pants and gave them a smart snap. "Better?" he asked, leaning away from her so she could get the full effect.
She laughed at him. "You'll pass muster on this ship." Then, without asking his leave, she walked with him up the remaining stairs to the dining area. Her manner made it seem as though he were escorting her, when in reality she lent an arm for him to steady himself whenever he felt the need.
Lunch was decidedly awkward. The shepherd had used his dwindling store of herbs to scramble up some savory dehydrated eggs, but his efforts couldn't survive the chill after River took one look at the captain, bit her lip in distress and fled from the room. Added to that was the strain of keeping the conversation light for Lily's benefit and preventing her from showering the captain with requests to stay aboard. Mal smiled gratefully at Kaylee when she suggested a game of jacks and dragged Lily away.
Mal helped himself to seconds once the rabble had cleared out. Thus fortified, he left the cleanup to the shepherd (hardly fair, since he'd cooked, but Book wasn't complaining), and limped to the bridge.
Zoë and Wash were there, their arms wrapped around each other. Mal ignored their intimate pose and addressed himself to the pilot. "So, where are we?"
"Sitting tight in the middle of nowhere. You got a course for me yet?"
Mal shook his head. "We need to be lost for a day or so. Just see to that."
"I think I can just about manage that."
"Good." The captain looked uneasily towards the noise coming up from the cargo bay.
The look wasn't lost on Wash. "Who are you avoiding this time?"
"Nearly everybody," Mal admitted. "But Lily mostly. She's starting to feel too much at home here."
"Serenity has that effect, Sir," Zoë commented. "We never did get rid of that last bunch of passengers."
Mal lounged back in the copilot's seat. "That's true. I may need to rethink this entire paid-passage concept."
"The whole problem," Wash theorized, "is that you keep thinking of the passengers as people. Big mistake. As soon as they sense that you have even the slightest bit of sympathy for them, you lose all control of the situation and they wind up traveling on an open-ended ticket for free. You always start off well—rude as hell. But then you let them see past that. Maybe if you just stayed in your cabin all day and paced the decks in the middle of ship's night. You could get a peg leg."
"What's he prattling on about?" Mal asked his first mate.
"I find it's better if I don't know, sir," she answered.
Mal nodded knowingly. "Any regrets yet on that whole marrying issue?"
"Fewer than on anything else I've ever done," she said with a smile.
"I suppose I oughta take some umbrage at that statement."
"Be my guest, sir."
They all sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. Finally, Wash couldn't stand it.
"If neither of you is going to talk, you're going to force me to fill this gap, you know. I can do the not-talking with Zoë, but not if we have an audience, if you get my meaning."
His captain and his wife gazed at him uncomprehendingly.
Wash smiled heartily. "Mal. Mal. Zoë and I were talking . . ." He looked at her with a look that asked her permission to continue. She nodded once. "We were talking, and we have a proposition for you."
Mal looked from one to the other. "Zhēn qìsi rén. Why do I get the feeling that I'm about to hear something horrifying?"
"It's just this, Mal. We've been talking for a long time about wanting to start a family someday soon—not right away, but soon.
"And, anyway, we know you're trying to find somebody to keep Lily, to give her a good home and to protect her. And, well . . . we think we could do both. We'd like to take her in and give her a home. We're better guardians than just about anybody else you could find, and it would get us on our own track that much sooner."
Mal listened with growing alarm. He turned to Zoë. "Has he finally lost his mind?"
Her eyes were warm with sympathy. "I think he lost it a long time ago, sir. But we agreed on this. We'll take her in, if you'll give her to us."
Mal stood up. "And lose my pilot and my second-in-command at the same time? The rest of us would be dead within a week." He turned to leave.
Zoë put a hand on his arm. "Mal. We really mean this. We don't want to leave you in the lurch, but we'd like to take her, if you decide you want that to happen. It's your decision."
"Damned right it's my decision. I'm still captain of this gorram ship."
"Mal, we didn't mean to make it sound like that was ever in question," Wash assured him.
Mal smiled wryly. "Yeah, I'm captain. That's a comfort. If only making the decisions meant that I actually have control over what happens."
He hobbled out the hatch leading to the shuttles and the cargo bay.
A few moments later, he hovered outside the entrance to Inara's shuttle. He knocked politely at the hatch and stood waiting, his face schooled to patience. After a minute, he gathered that she was busy or not in.
With a shrug, he opened the hatch and walked in. Inara wasn't there. He settled himself on her red couch and waited.
As he had expected, it wasn't long before she appeared. Her eyes showed surprise for a moment when she first saw him, but the look was quickly replaced by her habitual temper.
"I thought we agreed that this shuttle was private, captain," she said.
"We did, and I apologize for intruding," he replied. "I wanted to thank you for rescuing me earlier, and I was hoping you wouldn't mind if I hid out here for a while."
She smiled at him. "You're not afraid of a band of armed men, but you'll hide from a ten-year-old girl?"
"I know how to handle armed men. Little girls are beyond my experience."
Inara sat down on the couch facing him. "You do fine with girls of all ages. They trust you instinctively."
"Can't think why they would. But, see, that's the problem. Right now, I would rather that particular little girl ran screaming from the room every time I entered it. It would make this whole thing easier."
"You haven't decided what you're going to do?"
Mal shook his head. "I've been presented with a couple of options, neither of which I can say I'm taken with. One involves the preacher and his order. The other costs me my first mate and my pilot."
"Wash and Zoë would take her?"
"They seem eager. I've been hoping that if nobody mentioned children they might forget their intent to settle down and have some one day. I ain't ready to contemplate this line of work without Zoë to watch my back."
Inara leaned forward and put her hand on Mal's knee. He eyed it suspiciously. "Mal—I thought of another option, one that you probably won't want to hear either."
He looked into her eyes. "OK. May as well get it over with."
"I would be willing to call in a few favors and see that she gets sponsored at the Companions Guild on Sihnon."
He held her eyes a moment longer and then looked away with a pained laugh. "This just gets better. Inara, I don't like the fact that you're a whore—how could I ever turn that little girl into one? It would surely prove that her trust in me is misplaced."
"It's not such a bad life, Mal," she objected, inching a little closer to him. "The Guild is powerful, and it would give her a respectable profession. She'd have choices, and she'd be protected. Besides, who would ever expect you to hide her in the midst of the whores you so despise?"
"I don't despise the whores," he protested. "I mean—don't ever expect me to like your line of work. But you know damned well that doesn't make me disrespect you. Hell, Inara—I respected Nandi, too."
She glanced away a moment. "Mal, I know. But my point is still valid. It would be a perfect hiding place for her. And you'd be giving her the skills she might need to survive. Think about how effective Saffron is with her Guild training: she manipulates every man she meets. For a woman, that's far better than knowing how to fight." She touched his face. "Think how strong Nandi was. Someday Lily may need such strength."
Mal was silent, considering what she'd said. Finally, he pulled her hand down and placed it back in her lap. He held it there with his own hand. "Let's say I do this. What happens then? Is that your cue to make good on your threat and leave?"
She shook her head. "No, Mal. If she really is in some danger, then I can't be seen with her. The trail would be too easy to follow. I would leave her with a trusted friend who would do the actual sponsoring. I would stay here, for a while at least."
"Well, Masters gave me a hefty sum for placing the girl. Whatever money you might need to grease the skid—"
"I don't want money, Mal. Just let me do this for you." She turned her hands so that she was clasping his hand in both of hers.
He studied her face, looking for some underlying motive to her offer—hoping for one. As usual, he thought he detected one, but he didn't trust his own perceptions. He rose and walked to the shuttle door. He paused there and turned back to her. "What you say makes sense, Inara. Leastways, it does here. Course, everything you say to me in here makes sense at the time. Give me some time to think about it on my own, away from that companion training I'm so susceptible to."
She nodded. "If you decide to do this, Mal, it might be best to keep if from the others. The closer the secret is held, the safer she'll be."
"If I decide to do this, I couldn't bring myself to tell the others." He turned away and walked out onto the catwalk.
Below, a race was being run. River clung to Jayne's back and urged him on with frantic slaps to his buttocks. Kaylee, with Lily bouncing behind her, trailed just behind and hit the back of Jayne's knees in an attempt to bring him down. Gales of laughter from all four echoed up to the captain.
Jayne stared at the stack of money on the table before him. He glanced at the others, most with small stacks of cash before them, and then looked up at the captain with a frown. "This money don't seem right, Mal," he protested.
"It's your usual percentage, Jayne," the captain assured him curtly.
"It ain't that. It just don't seem right to get paid for this job."
The others stared at him in disbelief.
Wash turned to the doctor. "Is this what going mad feels like, Billy?"
Simon nodded. "I recognize the feeling. I just never thought it would happen this way."
"Jayne's right, Cap'n," Kaylee interjected. "This money shoulda gone with Lily."
"She's taken care of," Mal said. "And we missed a chance for a cargo job in order to accept this one. Only fair that crew get paid."
"Maybe the crew would feel more comfortable if they knew what had happened to her," Book pointed out.
Mal shook his head. "I didn't sell her into slavery or send her down a river in a basket. She's in a safe place—a good place. Leave it at that."
Wash threw an anguished look towards Zoë. She met his eyes briefly and then returned her silent gaze to the captain.
Later, she cornered Mal on the stairwell leading down past the infirmary. "We need a little talk, sir," she said in a calm, mutinous tone.
Mal sighed. "I reckon we do." He opened his mouth to speak and then stopped, unsure what to say.
"Wash and I did a lot of soul searching before we came up with that offer, sir. I happen to think that we deserve a little more consideration than 'leave it at that.'"
"You're not wrong." He looked at her blankly while he gathered his thoughts. "Look, I happen to think that you and Wash are gonna make great parents some day, but I gotta be honest: I am dreading the day that you decide to leave Serenity and set up housekeeping. I've been expecting to have as much as a nine-month warning for that."
"If there hadn't been some nameless menace looking for the girl, would it have been so wrong to've raised her here, sir?"
"With the Alliance or bounty hunters on our tracks most of the time?"
"Any worse than a frontier home with outlaws and reavers? At least Serenity can run away. And there's no shortage of family on board."
"Are you sayin' that you and Wash want to raise a family here?"
"Wash thinks it's insane, sir. It's my thought."
Mal blinked in surprise and shook his head. "If it comes to that, I won't force you to leave. And I can't promise that I won't beg you to stay. We've dealt with worse situations—we'll deal with that one."
Bonfires raged across the valley and crews of weary Independents heaved corpses onto the flames. Around them, crows dove upon the nameless bodies and fought over bloody tidbits, their raucous screams carrying on the hot wind.
Mal sat on a rocky outcropping, squinting against the smoke, and watched as River picked her way slowly along the creek bed that led past his vantage point. She was naked again.
"You know, I probably shouldn't complain, seein' as how you've been runnin' away from me all day, but I generally expect to be alone when I come here," he remarked when she was close.
She stopped and looked up at him. "Can you be sure you're not?" she asked.
He smiled a little. "I can't offer empirical proof, if that's what you're asking. But I'm fair sure you're not my own personal addition to this dream. And I still can't figure why you won't wear clothes."
She glanced down. "I keep forgetting. This is how you remember me best—how you first saw me."
"When I thought the Doctor was trading in slaves."
"I woke up to your anger. You were in a very dangerous mood."
"I get that way sometimes."
She clambered up the rocks and sat beside him, her knees pulled up to her chin. Mal turned his head enough to regard her from the corner of his eye. "I'd've thought you've had enough of being in my head for a while."
She watched a crow pluck an eyeball from a corpse. "I wanted to make sure this place hadn't changed." She rolled her head so she could see his face. "To make sure I hadn't pushed you out."
He surveyed the slaughter critically. "Looks pretty much the same." He turned to meet her gaze. "Hope you don't take this wrong, but you seem less crazy here."
She smiled at him lazily. "I feel safe here."
He cast a wry glance over the deadly landscape. "Okay, I take back what I just said."
She shrugged. "It's true." She turned her head slowly, taking in the whole scene, until her attention was arrested by a small figure picking its way forlornly through the corpses. Mal didn't have to look—he knew it was Lily.
"I sorely wanted to give her a family, a proper childhood. I didn't exactly manage that," he confessed.
"I had a family," River stated. "I had a happy childhood." She paused. "But it was a lie."
"You have a brother who gave up his world for you. That's a rare thing."
"It is. Almost as rare as a thieving pirate who would risk himself and his crew in order to hide a fugitive girl from the Alliance."
"Pirate might be a little strong," Mal protested.
"You picked a good hiding place," she said.
"You know, just because you can read my mind doesn't give you the right to go digging in to all my secrets," he complained.
"You've been chewing at it all day, and all night. Screaming loud enough to make my ears bleed."
He picked up a stone and lobbed it at a crow. It sidestepped and continued its grisly meal. "I hope I picked it for the right reasons," he admitted.
"Inara would've stayed anyway."
"Yeah, well . . . maybe she shouldn't."
Mal watched the soldiers staggering under the load of corpses as they flung them into the fires. One figure paused to wipe his brow and Mal felt a muffled cry of rage echo up from his belly and beat against his throat when he recognized the face of the slave boy he'd seen being led away on Midgard. Their eyes met across the piles of rotting flesh, and Mal recognized the hopelessness, the resignation, in that gaze.
"It's gettin' mighty crowded here in the valley," he observed.
zhēn qìsi rén damn it
Author's Note: Once again, I've drawn on some of my favorite artists for River's wanderings. Special thanks to Sting, Ian Anderson, and Thomas Babington Macauley.