Even So, Mei Miao

5ish years post-BDM. Full crew with romance: Mal/Inara, Simon/Kaylee, and…well I won't give away the third one here. A fun series of moments I believe must happen. Some plot too. Spoilers. Lots of 'em.

Chinese:

Ai ya: holy crap

Chou nao: stinking mud

Di di: little brother

Mei miao: beautiful (art)

Zao gao: dammit

"No, Simon, you can't come in my room. It's my room. I told you. It's private."

"Kaylee, I love you. I'd like to share…everything with you. I'd like a space that's ours, not just mine or yours or everyone's. I can understand that you need your own space. If that's your cabin, I wish you'd spend more time in my room, treat it like it's ours."

"Well, your room's all right sometimes. But what's wrong with the engine room?"

"The engine room…Kaylee, isn't this at all personal to you?"

"It is…the engine room's my favorite place. I spend more time in here anyways. I remember my first time aboard…well, you wouldn't want to hear about that, I guess."

Cap'n came in. "Don't reckon he would. And I seem to recall asking my engineer at the time was there something wrong with his bunk. At least you two have the courtesy to shut the door."

Kaylee turned pink. Simon turned red.

Kaylee looked up at Mal. "Well, you do have a way of sneakin' up on private situations, Cap'n. Inara's complained of that more'n once."

"Well in my mind, anything that goes on in my boat's my business. Especially if it's not going on in your cabin." He cleared his throat. "So, little Kaylee, how's the work goin' on that double backup life support system?"

"You're gonna keep calling me that till I'm old and grey, arent'cha, Cap'n?"

"O'course. You're my little Kaylee. No amount o' grey hairs can change that. Including the ones you give me."

There was a bit of technical talk, and Mal left again.

Simon turned back to her.

"So…wait. You were…in here…with someone else…you're both right, I did not want to know that."

"Hey, I wasn't going to say anything."

He got that I'm-annoyed-but-explain-this-to-me-anyway look on his face. "So, is it me, or the engine, that you want to be with?"

She turned pink again. Twice in one day! "Oh…well…both. I mean, you. But….Well, here, I'll explain it this way. Some girls like romance an' flowers an' music an' candles….It makes it…you know…better. Well, I like engines."

"Kaylee, when I sleep with someone, I like that to not just mean sex. I like to sleep in the same bed with that person. That means almost as much to me. It's sharing a big part of your life."

There are still warrants out for the arrest of River and her brother but as the years have gone by she has started to look less and less like her bedraggled test-subject mug shot and more like a happy healthy young woman. The Alliance has lost a whole fleet of cruisers and an elite operative to their search for her. Since Miranda's secret was revealed, it has become more difficult to keep the population of even the core planets complacent. They simply don't have the resources to pursue River and uphold the law while they are rebuilding their fleet. And River has honed her senses and learned Serenity's helm so well that getting away before danger catches them up is almost a certainty. It all adds up to a bit more slack for Serenity and for most criminal operations.

"Die, Alliance scum! Eat T-Rex!"

"Thanks, we will. Better than the purplebelly we've been eating since you cut off our supplies. Cannibalism's gross!"

And there was the cry of a great beast fallen, and they divided it among their numbers and devoured it like the hungry savages they were. But there were more dinosaurs to come, and those dining became those dined upon, and vice versa, in good time.

"Raaaahrhh!" Behold the carnage.

"Filthy browncoats! You will rue the day you - " Boom. And his ribcage became visible. Apparently the first dinosaur was rigged with grenades.

But now the Alliance will reveal their secret weapon, cunningly disguised as a plastic palm tree.

River found where Wash used to hide his dinosaurs when he wasn't playing with them. All she had to do was listen. They whispered and giggled to themselves. They had the feeling of Wash to them; part of his spirit had given them life, and it remained in them. Now they were hers, as much as they were anyone's. Well, they belonged to Serenity.

Enter Hoban Washburne Junior. "Wivvewr, you playin' with Daddy's toys?"

River's face lit up. "Banny! Yes, I'm playing Alliance versus Dinosaurs. It's very exciting. The alliance was just about to reveal their secret weapon."

"C'n I play?"

"Okay. Do you want to be Alliance or Dinosaurs?"

"Dinosawurs!"

"Well then, I get to crush you with the hidden super laser cannon!" River held up the plastic palm tree as if it were a tiny gun.

"But my dinosors awr awmor plated!"

"Oh, no, di di, the Alliance is in trouble now!"

Zoë watched from the hatchway. It was wonderful to see. There was so much joy on River's face, and nothing else, when she was lost in that childhood world with little Hoban. They had all been getting to know the real River since Miranda; slowly, she was getting better. And at the same time, they were getting to know Banny. Zoë suspected Banny had helped all of them more'n a little to get through the past few years. He was like some sort of highly mobile energy cloud with curly brown hair, more often laughing than not.

-flashback-

"Zoë, that's – how can you even do that?"

"I got the doc to take a sample before we buried him. He said he'd keep it for me until I was ready. Well I won't wait any more, because waiting just takes away possibilities. I want my family."

"Zoë, you can't – you can't just up and decide to have a baby on my boat. I don't do babies. Serenity don't do babies. They're small, they get lost, and they lead to all kinds of trouble. Plus that whole takin' a sample thing is just creepifyin' to me."

"I don't see that it's any of your business, Sir."

The captain saw the look on his second's face. "Zao gao, it's going to be like with Wash all over again, isn't it. You follow my orders, you behave like a reasonable person, and then suddenly…." Mal sighed deeply. "You go and do somethin' that reminds me you're a woman, and that is a species that confuses me to no end. All right, fine, just don't blame me if it gets lost. And don't let the thing spit up on me too much."

-/flashback-

Persephone. They were taking on passengers again. Kaylee sat in her deck chair on the loading ramp. She remembered…here was the first place she'd seen Simon. He'd actually looked…almost…intimidating. His face was closed and hard like a steel deck plate. Now she knew he'd been scared out of his wits, but she still remembered that first impression, the look in his eyes like he knew things, secret things that would make your skin crawl. She'd felt a thrill go through her right there….

She came back to herself and she realized the shadow standing over her wasn't a memory. "Oh! Hello!" He did remind her a bit of Simon – a tall, young, thin-faced man with brown hair and a look like he didn't quite know what he was doing here. "Interested in buying a fare aboard our Serenity here?"

"I remember this ship," the young man said. "This is Jayne's ship, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah, I guess you could say that…." Kaylee looked from his face to his clothes. "Say, you look awful respectable to know Jayne. Who are you?"

"Oh, sorry. I'm Fess Higgins."

"Well, glad to meet'cha. I'm Kaylee. So how do you know Jayne?"

"Actually, I've never met him, but he's something of a legend on the moon I'm from. His ship landed once five or six years ago and I caught a glimpse of it. I was actually...uh…does the lady Inara still ship out with you?"

A knowing look came to Kaylee's face. "That she does, but she don't take clients no more." She smiled. "Cap'n wouldn't stand for it."

"Inara…not take clients….Why?"

"Oh, it's so exciting. They're gettin' married!"

There was a sort of deflated look on Fess's face at this point.

Zoë and Jayne had appeared out of the milling crowds, carrying a container of supplies. As they were starting up the ramp, Kaylee called out, "Hey Jayne, guess what. It's one of your fans from the land of chou nao."

Jayne looked him up and down. "He don't look like no mudder."

Fess's eyes lit up. "You're Jayne Cobb? I've always wanted to meet you! I…I'd like to become a member of your crew."

Jayne rolled his eyes. "Sure grovels like one. Well, kid, sadly I ain't the captain of this boat, and if I was I'd shoot ya just to teach you a lesson." Zoë glared at him. He sighed. "But the captain'd be mad. Mal's got a weakness for lost pups like you, so it's him y'want to be talkin' to. What's yer name, kid?"

"Fess Higgins." He held out his hand.

Jayne's eyes went round. "Ai ya! Yer that magistrate's kid. You gonna make any trouble over that money I stole?"

"No, sir. I've always wanted to defy my father the way you did. And I did take quite a bit of his money with me when I left, in fact, so you're not the one he's angry at right at the moment."

"Shiny. Another fugitive aboard. That's exactly what this ship needs."

"You know that what we do ain't strictly legal, right?" Fess nodded. "Now how do I know you won't turn us all over to the feds?"

"Hmm. Well – anyone else on your crew – how did you know they wouldn't?"

"I guess I didn't – one of 'em tried it, in fact. But I'd rather that not happen again. And you really don't look like the typical criminal looking for work."

"Well, I'm not especially fond of the alliance; I can't imagine anyone is, after word got out about the experiments on Miranda. I'm not entirely sure my father hasn't reported me to them himself about stealing his money. Also, I imagine if I was an Alliance mole trying to infiltrate your crew, I'd try harder to look like the typical criminal looking for work."

Mal looked at him for a second. "Well, you've got a way with words, that's somethin'. What other skills do you have that you think might be useful to us?"

"Well, I can pilot a shuttle…"

"Can you cook?"

"Yes, a bit…"

"You're hired."

In the little lounge area off the kitchen River was focusing on her drawing. It was of the dancers on Jiangyin, before they had been kidnapped. She was drawing from memory; it was incredibly accurate, and full of life and feeling and motion and color. Yellow with flashes of pink and black and brown. She remembered it as if it was before her eyes. She was learning to control the tools built into her brain meant to control her.

Fess walked into the silent kitchen, and it was a minute before he noticed her. "Oh, hello," he said. He walked over to look at her drawing. Before he could comment she spoke.

"It's a beautiful picture but it's not true. They're not carefree. Every life has pain in it."

"Even so, mei miao."

She put her paper aside and turned to look at him. "Fess Higgins. You were going to tell me. I know. I'm River."

"You're a mind reader?"

River put her booted feet up on another chair, and crossed them. The motion had a sort of swagger to it. "One of the great wonders of the 'verse." She smiled at Fess.

Then her eyes flicked across the room. "Little Bubble is coming."

Fess looked at the door, but he saw no one. Then a tan, brown-haired toddler came running in, towards River. He stopped when he saw Fess.

"Banny!" cried River, and swept him up onto her lap. He laughed. "This is Fess," she said, pointing up at the young man. "He's very nice. He wants to ride in Serenity with us."