Characters not mine.

(Originally written for a free-for-all challenge on comment_fic. Prompt was "what we are fighting for.")

Polly decided that the skirts weren't anything she was keeping very quickly on the theory that trousers could be quite useful even if she was introducing herself as Sergeant Polly Perks these days rather than Oliver.

Mal wore them another six weeks before disappearing for a full twenty hours and reappearing, quite suddenly, on the other side of the fire. "Mind putting some coffee on?"

Polly shrugged and reached for the kettle, and Mal moved closer to take a seat. She seemed much more familiar now, without the swish of skirt where Polly had thought her legs ought to be. "I thought you might have changed."

One corner of Mal's lips turned up slightly. "Of course I didn't think of trousers. Things just work out for vampires, you don't have to work all that hard at it."

Polly rolled her eyes.

"Besides," Maladicta added, taking over with the coffee as soon as Polly had figured out where the kettle had gone, "it was nice to be recognized for once."

"Mmm?"

Mal made a face at her, because she knew Polly was well aware of what she was talking about. "I'm not a vampire anymore, I'm just a coffee addict with an incredible regenerative ability and a tendency to become a collection of fifteen bats. I'm still wearing the sword more for your protection than mine, but I'm not . . . vampire dangerous. But people still seem to think that at any moment I'm going to strip down to my underdress and start flirting coquettishly with the nearest man."

Polly snorted. "I doubt you've ever stripped down to your underdress and started flirting coque-" Polly hesitated. There had been some rather good ale around the fire that night, and in light of her tipsy state, that word suddenly seemed likely to develop a few more "k" sounds. "- and started flirting with the nearest man in your life."

Mal put the kettle on. "I'm a vampire," she said, almost sulkily. "I flirt coquettishly. But men smell." She wrinkled her nose. "Granted, so do you."

Polly jostled her elbow, and Mal rolled her eyes.

"Anyway," the vampire continued, despite distraction, "I figured, you know, female uniform, female soldier, let's be me for a change. What's this whole army thing about if it's not about being me for a change?"

Polly shrugged. She had the idea of big things that had to be seen to before enjoying little things, but Mal's vampire motivations were no doubt quite different.

Mal watched her quietly, and it wasn't until Polly had looked back at her that she added, "Then I spent a month and a half swearing at a skirt and teaching the lads new words - I'm not used to skirts like that, you know, vampires prefer suggesting to hiding - and decided maybe I've spent enough time being a boy or a dangerous vampire that I'm not all that good at being me."

"Mal," Polly said.

The vampire glanced at her. Mal was hardly better endowed than Molly - mostly tall and slim and lithe, like a stalking leopard rather than curvy and feminine. And now with that lean body and slightly tousled dark hair flickering in the firelight as the coffee brewed, Mal looked like him again.

Or her again. Whichever Mal wanted to be.

"I like this you," she said, leaning forward.

"Good," Mal answered, and met her halfway.