Captain Mal Reynolds sniffed and squinted, rolling over to glare at the generic green numbers on the dial next to his bed. Next to him, there was a soft mutter, probably a cuss word and he twisted to take her into his arms. Grumbling softly, she laid her dark head on his bare chest and curled there, falling back into oblivion like she had never been disturbed.
Mal kissed Inara's black curls and closed his eyes. They would need to be getting up soon, but a few more moments wouldn't hurt anyone...
There was the hissing sound of a small body propelling itself down into his quarters, then the thud of small feet hitting the floor. Thump-thump-thump; and then a warm, sticky pair of hands were laid on his bare arm. He quietened the little boy as Inara sat up, groggily.
"Daddy! Daddy! Tai-Ao woke Uncle Jayne and he is mad!"
"Shhh! Sh! Hey, Inde, there ain't no need to be waking the whole gorram shit with yore racket! S'bad enough y'all have gone an' woken the ol' dinosaur, without gettin' everyone else up as well!"
Mal swung his feet out of bed and ruffled the dark head of his youngest son; giving a half-awake smile to the reflection's of his own eyes. Independence Serra Reynold's gave a return smile, brilliant in its childish intensity.
"Now where's this gorram Tai?" he asked, standing up.
"This way, quick, quick!"
Inde took off back up the ladder. Mal sighed and pulled on a shirt, stretching and yawning. Then he turned and kissed Inara again. She glared at him stubbornly, hair a mess and eyes dazed.
"He's being manly and impulsive. I blame you" she muttered. He grinned and turned to follow the echoing trail of his son up into the galley. As he swung up onto the ladder, his elbow smacked the side of the wall and hurt...but not as much as it would have should he have struck steel. One foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, he looked at the wall. There was a pigeon hole, a panel of steel removed where two of this cabin's struts lay. Looking deeper, he saw the ass-end of a narrow cardboard box and tried to remember when in hell he'd put it there. He blinked, about to reach inside it, when a holler from above stilled his hand.
It sounded like Jayne, and he sounded, in Inde's words, mad.
The mysterious box would have to wait. The Captain was needed to captainy things...among which, it sounded like, was saving Simon Tam and Kaylee Frye's son from an unspeakable death.
Sure enough, Jayne was standing in the middle of the galley, red-faced and furious, facing down with a bright eyed little boy in shorts and suspenders, one of which was hanging off his shoulder, with a green t-shirt, combat boots on his feet that were hand-me-downs from Washburn Alleyne. Aforementioned twelve-year-old was standing against the wall of the galley, watching proceedings with every inch of his mother's stoic mannerisms. Hovering beside him was Shuai-Dan, Tai-Ao's twin sister. She had her hands in the pockets of her red coveralls, a pair of pink-laced sneakers on her feet, mimicking Wash's calm approach to the situation.
Mal sighed. It seemed like the newest generation to grace Serenity's womb had taken the opportunity of a parent-free morning with both grubby hands. Things had undoubtedly been a whole lot smoother for the crew before they'd become family; since Book and Independence Reynold's, Washburn Alleyne and the Tam twins, Shuai-Dan and Tai-Ao, everything had changed. The oldest, Wash, was twelve, and he looked out for the others, a hard task. Given a moments notice they were prone to get themselves into all kinds of mischief. The ringleader was usually ten-year-old Tai-Ao, leading Independence astray. Then of course, Book would follow just to keep his seven-year-old little brother out of danger. Never out of trouble; trouble they could handle. Danger was something else.
It was time to be a captain before young Tai said anything else smart and forced usually brotherly Jayne into something he'd regret later.
"NOBODY MOVE!"
Everyone froze. Even Jayne, for a second, went still before becoming sullen and crossing his arms with a satisfied expression on his face.
"Alright. Somebody amongst y'all had best be doing some explaining. Start with the part where my Sund'y mornin' sleep-in is somewhat interrupted..." he trailed off, examining the damage to the kitchen where, judging by the amount of high-protein syrup sprayed across all surfaces, Inde had acquired his notably sticky appendages-
"And end where my kitchen looks like a storm went a'ragin' through it, mightily peeved off"
He stuck his hands on his hips and glared. Washburn looked right back, undeterred. So did Shuai, but she looked apologetic at least. Tai's eyes actually twinkled, and Inde was pigeon-toed.
"Make that five"- Mal took a pause, counting heads quickly-
"Four. Where's Book?"
"He took his breakfast down to the cargo bay. Auntie River's dancing" piped up Inde.
Mal relaxed. Nine year old Book Reynold's was a dreamy kid with a short temper and dark eyes like his mother. It wasn't unusual for him to go missing, and be found among whatever boxes and riff raff they had in the cargo bay, perched with a good book, somewhere where he could see everyone coming. Book, not unlike his namesake, was Serenity's secret keeper. He knew everything, but never breathed a word.
Mal turned his attention now to the four remaining vagabonds.
By the time they had sorted the whole mess out, Mal had clean forgotten about the hidey hole in his cabin, and the mysterious box. Until that night when he tumbled sleepily into the room, and suddenly remembered. He took the box out, opening it slowly, cautiously, and suddenly remembered.
Captures. Hard copies they'd printed off the Cortex to do...something, with. He'd plumb forgotten. Something about a scrapbook, or an album, or some such. He wondered what had happened to the idea. A second later, he remembered; a job had come up. It had gotten messy. He winced and emptied the captures onto his desk.
Each of them told a story.
The first he picked up was he and Inara, her belly just showing an unborn Book. Their hands were linked together over her navel as she sat, half-asleep in his lap. He looked at the younger version of himself; wryly noting his much darker and more abundant hair as he looked suspiciously at the camera. Kaylee had been wielding it, if he remembered correctly.
He smiled, remembering. They'd landed on a Rim planet, hiding out for a few days to escape a rather aggravated ex-client. Jayne was teaching a two-year-old Washburn how to shoot. Well, they were playing with his guns anyhow. Zoe had been in bed. She'd done a lot of being in bed after young Wash was born. Post-natal depression, Simon had diagnosed her with.
The young doctor had been in a frenzy that day. First of all, he was...well, 'agitated' wasn't quite strong enough, but he was in a proper bind about Kaylee being so heavily pregnant, with twins none the less, and refusing to leave the engine room to sleep. Second of all, he was concerned about Zoe, and then he was absolutely furious at Mal for taking a job so dangerous while they were loaded with pregnant women and a child. In the end, he was grating so much on everyone's nerves that River of all people had told him to "Cease your boobish behaviour and take your prattling nonsense elsewhere!"
Which, coming from the Queen of prattling nonsense, must have hit pretty hard.
Placing the capture back on the desk, Mal reached for another one, and grinned outright when he saw this one. It was a family portrait. A gorram dysfunctional family, but it was a portrait just the same. Kaylee had insisted that it be taken with Serenity and when River had backed her up, nobody was going to argue. Not since the Albatross wasn't just a Reader now; she was Jayne's gun-partner, which therefore meant anything she said was backed up with Jayne's chain of command.
So there they were, arranged without much pushing and shoving, on the Persephone dock while some stranger snapped their picture.
There was Inara, her hands gently restraining on Book's shoulders. She never abandoned her way of dressing in silks and satins, and if not then dressing well. There were times when it grated on Mal somewhat, seeing her still dressed to the nines like a Companion. Then she'd go and get all articulate and render him unable to argue. Some of their worst arguments were solved in their bunk, he reflected, grinning.
Beside Inara stood Kaylee, looking forever bright and cheerful, if a little tireder than usual, holding a barely walking Shuai against her hip. Zoe stood next, a little in front of Kaylee, with Malcolm's arm around her shoulders. They were both smiling; one of Zoe's rare pre-Wash Senior smiles and, on Mal's features, that pure smile that made Inara's heart race. Nestled in the crook of Mal's arm was a bundle of blue blankets, two open palms emerging. It was almost a peaceful gesture, but then, Inde was like that, even from a young age.
Beside Zoe, leaning his head on her hip with her arm protectively around his shoulders was Washburn. He was an ever-tolerant cross between his parents; lean and mocha-skinned with blonde hair and his mother's dark eyes.
Beside them, with his arms folded and turning aside, was Jayne. Present-day Mal rolled his eyes. Trust Jayne to ruin the picture by being pig-headed...except...he squinted closer, appraising the positions of his gun hand's again.
There. River's fingers, linked with Jayne's larger ones, just visible against the dark colour of his long-sleeved t-shirt. Jayne's head was turned aside because, though Mal couldn't be one hundred percent sure of it, he was pressing a furtive kiss to River's temple. Caught in the moment, the only expression on the Reader's face was bliss and joy. This was a long was before they had announced it to the crew that they would be sharing a bunk.
Mal shook his head at their boldness. Crouched in front of them, holding an unsteady Tai on his feet, Simon met the camera with the ghost of a smile on his regal face. If he had seen that little stunt of Jayne's...well, spacing the merc would have been a kindness.
Mal flicked slowly through the rest of their lives, stopping every once in a while to reflect.
Shuai and Tai's tenth birthday, when Shaui touched the bottom of her half of the protein chocolate cake and had to kiss the nearest boy; which just so happened to be Wash. Nobody except Jayne battered an eyelash. Mal raised an eyebrow. Nobody messed with Shaui without Jayne having something rather blunt to say about it. It was understandable for most part; Shaui-Dan was the only daughter of Serenity's crew. She was particularly precious.
In the picture, Wash had his arm around Shaui's shoulders, a surprisingly intimate gesture for such a private youngster. A threat they'd never considered was one from within...
He made a mental note to talk to Zoe about having a particularly awkward conversation with the young man, and put the picture down.
There was a picture in Ma Cobb's farmhouse at the long kitchen table, taken at Jayne's thirty-fifth birthday. Mattie had her arm around Jayne's shoulders, and River was looking directly and seriously at the camera. Inde was falling asleep against Inara's breast, while Book, Tai and Wash grinned obnoxiously at the camera, making flamboyant 'peace' signs and messing around. Shaui-Dan had been forced into a dress for her favourite uncle's birthday, and looked something akin to disgust. Simon sat beside her, caught in the midst of a tolerant frown. His hand and Kaylee's were linked on the table-top, their rings glinting in the harsh yellow light of the kitchen.
Here was one that made Mal sigh. Another family portrait; not the whole family, just the Alleyne's. Young Wash smiled indulgently for the camera; his arm was around his mother's waist, silently giving her strength. Zoe stared at the camera with dull longing in her eyes. Beside them, forever caught in a loop of turning and grinning, was Hoban Washburn. It was a strange, sad capture. Mal put it gently back on the table top.
Book's black-as-Black eyes looked back at him, startled from the middle of the next capture. He had one arm around Inde, the other around Shaui, who were both asleep with their head's on his shoulders. Wash looked beyond the camera frame; at the photographer, only half awake, but with his arm in front of slumbering Tai. His other hand had fallen to his too-big boots, to the switchblade Jayne had given him for his eleventh birthday. Again, Kaylee had snapped this one as the children came back onto the ship in the back of the mule after a job. Inara had taken the children, with Kaylee and Simon, to hide out while Mal, Jayne, Zoe and River did a cargo drop. It was meant to be their last lawless job; every one they did was agreed to be their last job with firepower, but none of them were.
The Alliance's net stayed tight, and Serenity and her crew had to fly hard and fast, take what they could and give nothing back, to survive. Mal took a deep breath and let it out heavily, that one picture staying with him even after he put it down.
He knew for a fact the children could look after themselves. Shaui-Dan had inheriated her mother's affiliation for engine repair, and if worse ever came to worse, Wash and Book could fly Serenity well enough. River drilled them all in hand-to-hand combat, and it was River, so she didn't go about it half-assed. Jayne trained them with the guns as soon as he trusted them not to hurt his girls. Inde was the only one not quite ready for that, but he would be soon. He glanced at the picture.
If it hadn't been Kaylee, if it had been somebody who wished harm on them...well, they would have had the fight of their lives.
Were they fighting on the wrong side of the law here? Was the old fight, the old war, worth the lives of these children; with whom he had a bond stronger than family. With their parents he had fought, struggled, bled and killed, and if it ever came down to it, he would kill for them, bleed for them, steal for them and die for them.
"Mal?"
Her sweet, soft voice shook him from these dark, uneasy thoughts. He turned to face her. She stood with her hands clasped gently in front of her at the foot of the stairs. He was so distracted he hadn't even heard her heeled slippers on the rungs.
"Hey there good lookin'" he said with what he hoped was his usual grin.
Inara crossed the distance between them to stand between his open legs, running one hand through his hair as the other rested on his shoulder. She searched his blue eyes with her black ones.
"Something is wrong" she stated.
He smiled, softly, faraway. She shivered as the tip of his finger traced a line from her ear lobe to the corner of her red lips.
"I don't say it enough, 'Nara, but I love you. You, and the boys, are my whole gorram world"
She smiled, his quietly confessed words striking her deeply, and bent to kiss him firmly. The first time he'd told her he loved her, he'd been drunk, and she'd been mad, not long after they got Serenity back in the air. River was still crazy, Zoe was grieving harder than she cared to admit, and everyone was reeling from the events of Miranda. She'd found him with a half empty bottle of whiskey, drowning his sorrows, and for some reason, it made her furious. They'd fought.
Well, she'd fought, he'd slurred his words and drunkenly stomped about, falling over.
"Malcolm Reynold's. There is a reason I stayed. There is a reason I left the Guild. There is a reason we have two amazing sons together, and there is a reason that I don't shoot you every chance I get"- they both chuckled- "That reason is very simple; I love you too"
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, hard, tangling his hands in her thick locks of hair and soaking up her taste, the feel of her in his arms and the smell of her skin, clothes and hair. When they drew apart, panting, Inara spoke before he could sweep her away completely on this wave of love and lust and desire.
"What's brought this on?"
Keeping his arms around her and being careful not to jostle them too much, Mal turned them both to face his desk, where the capture's from the box were strewn haphazardly. She picked them up, eyes grazing across the scattered images.
"Wuh de tyen, ah...there's so many" she said finally.
Mal's head leaning on Inara's shoulder, eyes closed, nodded softly. After a moment, he reached around her for the one Kaylee had taken of the brood on the backseat of the mule.
"I keep thinkin'...that maybe...ah, I don't even know, 'Nara. I couldn't ever regret bringin' our kids into the world, but I just keep coming back to..." he trailed off and he unconsciously rolled his shoulder; his most recent injury was a dislocation and fracture there.
"They look ready for anything" she said.
"They shouldn't be. Wash...he's damn quick with that blade. Anyone so much as look's twice at Inde, and you can hear Book's hackles goin' up. This ain't the life I woulda chosen for 'em, 'Nara"
Inara turned to face him, straddling his lap and looking him hard in the eye.
"Mal. This is the life we have. Maybe...well, you get shot. We get shot. Sometimes we get you shot, or visa versa. But this is our life, and it chose us. I didn't see myself here, but I'm glad, everyday, that I am here"
He raised one eyebrow crookedly.
"Everyday?"
She reconsidered with a wince.
"Well, not every day. I don't care how drunk the other guy is; brawl's are not my idea of a good time"
He laughed at that and she laughed with him. She had a special laugh for him; it was the high, ringing one that made Kaylee smile because it meant the ex-Companion was going to get some good sex tonight. She had a smile for him as well, one usually tinged with a strange mix of anger and excitement because they were fighting and she both loved and hated it when they fought; this proper, civilised woman who could shoot whiskey and wield a sword and a bow, who dressed in satin's and silks and smelled like jasmine and sandalwood, who was not above smashing an assailant over the head with a bottle if she got caught in a bar fight.
It lead him somehow to a picture of Kaylee; with her cheerful smile and her grease-smeared cheeks and her undying devotion to her husband and her children, her ability to fix an engine with her eyes shut while there were bullets flying all around her, and that near-lethal shin kick she could deliver should someone have a go at her.
The thought of lethal kicks of course, made tracks to River. River Tam; with her bedraggled brown ringlets and her long breezy dresses coupled with combat boots and that dangerous glint in her brown eyes as she flicked a knife around her fingers, quietly warning a restless client of the threat she posed. The smiles when she played with the children, and the smirk that drove Jayne crazy while they sparred or the peaceful look she had when she took the children through their daily kihon.
Jayne: strong, gruff and forthright. There were no secrets to Jayne, and nowadays he was even easier for Mal to understand because somewhere along the line he had picked up a dogged loyalty to the crew, a rough devotion to this family and an intense desire to protect them from all comers. Jayne was t-shirt's and boots, guns, blades and five-on-one wrestling with the kids. His sleepless nights hung in dark pockets under his eyes when River was having a rough patch and they all endured the grumpiness because of them.
Of course, somehow thinking of those sleepless nights in Jayne's face lead Mal to Simon; with his ramrod posture and the hair that was neat in the morning but slowly deteriorated over the course of the day's struggles, fixing grazed knees and plastering broken limbs, stitching more serious wounds and extracting bullets from flesh like the master he was. He fretted over his daughter, running with the boys, and over his son, provoking Jayne and Book, teasing his sister and pranking various members of the crew to no ends. Some of the burden of his sister had lifted now, bringing him closer to the mercenary he had toed the line with more than once.
Speaking of toeing the line; next in his tumbling thoughts came Zoe. Stoic and ever-present, holding them together even as she was falling apart. There were nights she pined for Wash Senior, and days where she would smile and it almost seemed like a sun broke through her ice. The son had a name, of course; Washburn Alleyne. He was smart and brave and quiet, a boy who was growing too fast for Mal's liking, to become a helluva man.
Mal and Inara left the snapshots where they were, spread across the table top.