Captain Malcolm Reynolds awoke to the sound of someone knocking on his door. Well, it was more like kicking the door than knocking and judging by the sound of the big boots, it was most likely Jayne. He tried to ignore the sound. He prefered staying in his own bed with Inara beside him than to deal with whatever nonsense Jayne was up to now.
"Captain, wake up! There's something going on in the cargo bay!" Jayne shouted.
"There's nothing going on in the cargo bay Jayne. You just had another nightmare. Go back to your bunk," Mal yelled at him.
Inara whimpered as she woke from all the noise.
"I'm not kidding. There's something out there. I think them reavers woke up," Jayne yelled down.
With a groan, Mal got out of bed and climbed the ladder up to Jayne. "You and your paranoia over those reavers are beginning to damage my calm. The government is paying us good money to find all those reavers and inject them with the cure. If you want to be part of earnin' the goods, you need to shut it."
"But Captain there's-" A scream from the direction of the cargo bay cut off Jayne's words. Mal looked surprised at the sound. "See?" Jayne said.
"Yeah, I reckon I'm beginning to see. Let's go." Mal said following behind Jayne.
By the time they reached the cargo bay, Zoe had joined them, as had Badger who was the newest member of their crew. There were thirty reavers laying on the floor tranquilized just as they had left them. The mission yesterday had gone exactly as planned. The reaver ship had been disabled, boarded, and everyone inside had been shot with tranquilizers. Then Simon had weighed them, calculated the dosage, and injected them with the cure. After that they had been brought on board Serenity to be monitored until their blood tests showed signs of recovery. Simon would wake them up when the time was right. For every documented recovery the crew was paid a large amount of money, mandated by law as part of the Reaver Recovery Program. They had done this four times already with no problems.
"Everything looks fine from down here Captain," Zoe said, "So what was that scream we heard?"
"Maybe it was River," Mal said. "She still ain't quite right in the head. Could be she was out here screaming."
"I don't think so. Look," Jayne pointed to movement in the corner to their left. It was then that they saw that one of the cargo containers that should have been stacked against the wall was laying on its side on the floor. Something moved behind it. "That's my ammo container. I don't know how it fell over unless…"
Mal motioned to Zoe who nodded and moved in closer to the cargo container. Something was inside the container trying to slide the lid out of place.
"Whoever you are back there, come on out with your hands up," Mal said, gun raised.
No reply, no further movement except from Zoe as she inched closer.
"I ain't fooling," Mal went on, "You come out of there all peaceful like and no one's gonna hurt you."
"Captain," Zoe raised her hand to quiet him. "It's just a kid. She's naked."
"Not again…" Mal muttered.
Zoe moved a little closer. "I know you're scared honey, we're not here to hurt you. Come on out of there?"
"No," A voice answered, sounded like a kid, maybe a girl. "I can't."
"Okay, then I'm gonna come to you," Zoe said and she did. Zoe went around the cargo container and stopped short, "Put the gun down kid and no one will hurt you."
"I don't think so," The girl said, her voice shaken.
"There are four of us in this room with guns but we'll put down our guns if you'll put down yours." Zoe said calmly.
"Fine," The girl said. They heard the sound of her gun sliding across the floor.
Zoe bent and picked it up. There was a shelf of blankets nearby for their reaver patients. Zoe grabbed a blanket and gave one to the girl. "What's your name? What are you doing on our ship?"
"I'm just a stowaway." The girl said as Zoe put a blanket around her and led her out into the light where everyone could see her.
"Hey, I know you!" Jayne spoke up before Mal could react to this news of a stowaway. "You been following me all this time? What kind of a scam are you running?"
"It's not a scam! It was never a scam!" The girl said, starting to cry.
"Oh really? Then where's my five thousand dollars?" Jayne protested.
"How the hell did this little thing steal five thousand dollars from you?" Zoe asked, her tone almost amused.
"Well, it wasn't like she took it by force," Jayne said. "She tricked me."
"That must have been difficult," Simon said, joining them in the cargo bay just then.
Jayne wasn't listening. "How the heck did you get on this gorram ship? And what did you do with my ammo? Did you steal that too?"
"I didn't steal it. I didn't steal anything. I just wanted a chance to know my father a little better," She said, sounding genuinely distressed.
"I already gave you that chance and you ran off with five thousand dollars and two of my guns," Jayne replied. "What makes you think I'd trust you now?"
"Wait, is this girl actually your daughter Jayne?" Zoe asked.
Before Jayne could answer, the girl collapsed where she stood in the cargo bay. Simon was the first reach her but Jayne wasn't far behind. Simon began checking her vitals while Jayne watched, seemingly concerned.
"She probably passed out from low blood sugar," Simon said. "I doubt she had much to eat since she came on board. I could treat her better in the medbay."
Jayne knelt down without a word and carried the girl to the medbay himself.
"She gonna be okay?" Mal asked from the doorway of the medbay as Jayne laid the girl out on the table.
"I think so," Simon said.
"Okay, well you do your work doc. Jayne here is gonna meet with the rest of us in the galley. He's got some explaining to do," Mal said.
Five minutes later the entirety of the crew had gathered around the table where they usually took their meals.
"You mind tellin' us how it is that you know that there girl in our medbay?" Mal asked but it wasn't really a question and Jayne knew that.
"When we stopped for vacation three months back she showed up at my hotel room. Said her name was Charlie Denver. Said she was my daughter," Jayne began. "Course, I didn't believe her, told her to get lost but she kept coming back. Every day for ten days she came back. Same story over and over. The story did kinda made sense. Her mom was Pati Denver and was a bank guard. Years ago I was with some fellas who cased a bank. My job was to distract the guard and I did. I distracted her real good. I remembered her name tag said the name Pati Denver… anyway after a lot of days of Charlie bugging me, I agreed to a DNA test. Turns out, she really was my kid. She told me she was homeless. Her mom had died and her stepdad was abusive. So I let her in. I let her stay in my hotel room. On the last day of vacation, I woke up and and she was gone and so was my money and two of my guns…"
The room was filled with stunned silence. "Tell me you at least tried to look for her after that?" Kaylee spoke up.
"Of course I looked for the little rat. She had my money," Jaybe said, irritated. "I never did find it."
"Well then," Mal said, "If she's got no place else to go, far as I'm concerned, Charlie can stay."
"No, Mal, you don't want this kid on your ship," Jayne protested. "She will rob you blind. She will find everything of value and take it and run. She'd take the glasses right off your face."
"In case you hadn't noticed, I don't wear glasses," Mal said.
"Well I know that, it was just a figure of speech," Jaybe said.
"A figure of speech?" Mal said, "I'm impressed that you know about those. You're more educated that I thought. It's too bad you're such a heartless bastard."
"Hey!" Jayne started to argue.
He might have said more but Mal continued. "Your own flesh and blood Jayne…are you really suggesting that I kick her off my ship?"
"Well, we could leave her someplace nice, like a school for girls or something…" Jayne said. "But she can't stay here. After a week none of us would have anything left."
"Don't leave her at a school," River said, her eyes big and worried. "They do terrible things to the kids at schools. Terrible things...terribly terrifying things…"
"I'm afraid she's already been through some pretty terrible things," Simon said, as he entered the room and joined the crew. "She has scars, a lot of them. Someone abused her."
Everyone was glaring at Jayne, "Hey, it wasn't me that abused her!"
"No," Mal said. "It wasn't you, but you didn't do anything to stop it either. Now's your chance to see to it that that kid in there gets taken care of. So the question is, are you gonna run away like the coward I believe you to be, or you gonna finally be the man you claim you are?"