First things first: I LOVE FIREFLY. Love it to death. It's the greatest show ever. And I know there are some people who will not like my take on it in this story. That's okay. When it comes to mpreg and slash fics, I am very, VERY particular when it comes to the content and portrayal of the characters. I have hopes for this story being short, and I hope I have stayed true to the characters. This is how I think they would be acting in this situation. I also love to take pre-existent characters and put them in dastardly situations like this. If someone else had been writing the show, hey, it could have happened. But it didn't, except in the heads of the fans. So here's my spin on this kind of story. No it was not inspired by a really weird Firefly dream, what on Earth-That-Was would give you that idea?

Also, there will be Castle references. You'll know them when you see them.

So, if you don't like slash or mpreg, it's easy - DON'T READ THIS STORY.

If you're down with that and want to see what I have to offer, by all means, enjoy!

0-000-0

As soon as Serenity docked at Persephone and shut off her engines, it seemed to Malcolm Reynolds that his entire crew just... de-materialized. Even Wash, who was piloting the damn thing, vanished as soon as Mal turned around and then back again. The captain honestly couldn't blame them, seeing as they'd all been cooped up on Serenity for months on end. They'd come dangerously close to running on empty.

Mal made a silent promise to never, ever accept an escort job again. There was taking caution in planning a smuggling route, and then there was the absurdity he and his crew had to put up with for the last four months. Sure, the money was good - better than good, actually - but was it worth the sanity they'd lost? No. So no more escort jobs that could last for months. And here Mal thought that shipping cows was the most annoying job he'd ever taken.

Slowly making his way out of the pilot cabin and into the cargo bay, Mal trudged along the catwalks as he watched the bay door open and his crew escape into the sunlight and the fresh air that stank of engine exhaust, bad marketplace food, and human sweat. Within a few seconds they had charged or walked down the ramp and into the docks, chattering amongst each other. River raced off side by side with Kaylee, with Simon in hot and probably worried pursuit. Wash and Zoe were heading off in another direction, and Jayne and Shepherd Book each went their separate ways. Mal suspected Inara was in her private shuttle, arranging for a client or something, so Mal was effectively alone on his ship.

Leaning heavily on the catwalk railing, Mal crinkled his nose at the smell being carried into Serenity. He didn't like that his sense of smell was sharper now. He didn't like that any of his senses were sharper now. Normally he might like that - useful stuff, sharp senses. Not now.

Mal could have joined his crew, but he settled for watching them disappear, his gaze lingering on the dust and bright sunlight that was beckoning from outside Serenity. He just wanted to go back to his bunk and collapse until they came back, all loud and happy and crowding the ship. After a few minutes of staring off into space, jaw clenched unusually tight, Mal peeled himself away from the railing and dragged himself back into the depths of his ship.

As he descended down near the infirmary, Mal quietly considered popping in and running a quick checkup on himself. Normally, with everyone around, he ran the risk of one of them noticing - he was particularly worried about Simon, the gorram kid practically lived in the infirmary. Very rarely did Mal get the chance to do a checkup, and with everyone off the ship, he had the perfect opportunity.

He paused by the door for a little while, chewing his lip. "Gos se," he finally muttered under his breath, opening the door and ducking into the infirmary. Mal wasn't sure why he was doing this. What was the gorram point anymore? It wasn't as if the scan would tell him something different today. Early on, yeah, he felt the need to have medical verification, but by now his own body was telling more than he wanted to know.

It took a little time to find the scanner. Simon was meticulous to a fault when it came to keeping the infirmary clean and organized, and Mal was sure he would respect that if it didn't annoy him so much when he couldn't find things. When he found the scanner, he sat down on the infirmary bed, legs hanging off the side. He stared at the scanner, running his thumb over the side as he considered whether or not he should turn it on and use it.

He really didn't want it to tell him what he already knew for a thirtieth or fortieth time. Then he thought about it, and he turned the scanner on and ran it down the length of his torso. Within a few seconds, it gave off a soft beep, letting him know it was done collecting information. As he scanned over the readings, Mal noticed nothing blatantly out of the ordinary.

Ha. Ordinary. As if that word could be used to describe him now. Setting the scanner back in its proper drawer, Mal exited the infirmary and resumed his walk through the ship.

Quiet. It was so quiet, it was almost irritating. Mal had spent that last few months wishing he was the only one on Serenity, but now that he had some precious alone time, he found himself missing his crew and their boisterous behavior. Gorram mood swings. Mal hated 'em. He hated feeling tired one second, angry the next. He hated feeling heavy.

A few times he even found himself hating Jayne. A year ago that wouldn't have come as much of a surprise to anyone, least of all Mal. Jayne was not an easy man to get along with, and the captain still didn't know if the mercenary still had ideas of shooting him as soon as someone offered him a better deal. Hopefully they'd moved past that. Jayne was... better now. Still crass as all hell, but he didn't seem bitter. Kaylee had mentioned something about Jayne not being so grumpy or rude anymore, and Mal could only think of that as a good thing.

Now, he didn't want to take credit for that, or anything...

To be honest, Jayne helped him, too. Mal had never accepted that... part of himself before. Every time he claimed he wasn't sly, there was always that tiny part of him that argued otherwise, not that it was a complete lie. At first Inara was the only one who knew, since despite Mal's near-constant mocking of her profession, she was his closest confidante. Then Jayne found out a little more than a year ago thanks to some booze and some weird colony harvest festival.

Stupid. That was the word to describe Mal that night. He got just a little too friendly with the resident hired gun, and his ass had regretted it in the morning. What surprised Mal was that Jayne wasn't mad about it. If anything, the man had been... anxious? Embarrassed? Was there even a word to describe the expression Mal remembered seeing on his face, when he though Mal was going to leave his quarters without so much as saying a word?

As he walked, Mal leaned against the walls every few steps or so, bumping his shoulder and scraping a few inches before pulling back and standing up straight again. Jayne... the mercenary was a complication that liked to screw with Mal's head. First he was an enemy thug. Then he was a hired gun. Then he was a member of the crew. Then he was a friend. What was he now?

Mal's lover?

A wave of dull pain trembled through Mal, causing his hands to shake. The feeling passed soon enough.

He was sure almost everyone on the ship knew something was going on between them. Ever so often Mal caught River sending him one of her little knowing smiles that told him she knew things. He suspected the girl knew more than she was letting on, but he never questioned her about it. As for the others, well, they were smart. Too smart, sometimes. They had to know something about Jayne and Mal, but not about... it.

Mal shook his head, stopping in the middle of the hallway next to a ladder. His hand went out and fastened around one of the rungs, gripping the metal with a fervid intensity. Gorram, he missed his crew, but he missed Jayne more, and not just because he was off on the docks with the rest of them. Mal missed him because they hadn't been talking much recently. It was Mal's fault. He'd been subconsciously avoiding Jayne, and the man had picked up on Mal's distant attitude real quickly.

The captain hadn't seen the inside of Jayne's quarters in almost three weeks. They spoke to each other in passing, and the few times they'd passed in the hallways when no one else was around Mal found himself pinned to the wall for a few short minutes, fending off Jayne's aggressive lips. It never lasted long, and that little mournful glare Jayne gave Mal every time they parted cut deep into the captain. He was starting to hate himself for doing that to Jayne.

He kept telling himself he had to do it, but Mal knew that was the fear talking. Recently he couldn't stand having Jayne touch him because it felt like he was lying to the man. How - pain, why is there pain - could Mal tell him about the heaviness, about the biting pain near his stomach, about the nausea that never seemed to go away? He suspected that Jayne wouldn't even believe him. He would just think Mal was playing some cruel joke.

Mal had never found the courage to tell Jayne about it.

The captain cut back a grimace as he headed toward his quarters for some much-needed downtime. As soon as he started thinking about it, a sharp pain stabbed him from the inside. It didn't feel much different from the tightness he'd been experiencing over the last month, just a little sharper. Mal remembered how long it had been since he first started noticing how gorram sick he felt. Nine. He hated that number now.

Tai-kong suo-yo duh shing-chiou sai-jin wuh duh pee-goo... he didn't have time for this. He would never have time for this. Inara kept telling him that it would be better if he told the crew, but how exactly was he supposed to do that? She'd only known for the past three months. Mal had kept it a very closely guarded secret. You couldn't tell by looking at him, even if he was bare to the skin, which was how Jayne hadn't noticed it yet.

Sometimes Mal felt like crying, but he never did. He was only tempted to when the pain got bad... when you feel his body changing. The crawling sensation festered beneath his skin, threatening to force him into seizures of agony with no hope of the pain fading away. No hope of screaming, for that matter. Mal considered himself lucky that the spasm had never got that bad. Mostly he just felt a dull ache, and it had been getting worse over the last few hours.

Sometimes he felt it squirm.

Mal was never so scared as when he woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in cold sweat, all because he felt just the slightest tremor of movement from inside him. Those nights - and sometimes it happened in the middle of the day - he was reminded that it was alive. No thank you, he always thought. He didn't want it. It would just complicate things for him as the captain, and it wouldn't do the crew any good to have that kind of... infestation.

He was near his quarters. Just around the corner and he would safe in his bunk. It would feel much more welcome if Jayne was occupying it, but that couldn't be helped. Sooner or later - pain pain PAIN - the crew was bound to find out what was going on with their captain, and in that event, would Jayne want to even look at Mal anymore? Mal realized he should've spent the last few weeks relishing Jayne's touch instead of avoiding it.

Mal pressed his forearms against the hatch leading to his quarters. Tapping his head lightly against the metal, he shifted uneasily where he stood as he remembered touches, whispers, heat rising from bodies pressed together in a single bunk. Sometimes there was pain - not like this pain not like this - but mostly it was just pleasure, raw and feverish and very, very wonderful. It was the whispers Mal liked the most, though - little words that Jayne murmured when he was half asleep.

Stay.

That was Mal's favorite. Despite the turmoil currently invading his thoughts, he managed a smile. Putting up the effort to clear his mind and make it easier for him to get to sleep, Mal leaned down and pressed on the hatch lever to enter his quarters.

As soon as he bent over, the ache in his stomach turned into a brutal spike of pain.

Letting out a guttural snarl, Mal collapsed into the wall, and the hatch slammed shut next to him. His body curled into itself, spasming as a wave of pain shot through his abdomen. It only lasted maybe fifteen seconds, but that was more than enough. When the pain finally faded, Mal found himself drenched in sweat and shivering. A pressure was building up inside him, and when combined with the churning feeling in his stomach...

Doubling over, Mal retched on the floor, the half-digested remains of breakfast vacating his stomach. A sour taste was left in his mouth, and he did his best to wipe the vomit from his face. Shuddering, Mal forced himself to his knees, and then to his feet, using the wall for support.

"Tah mah duh hwoon dahn..." Mal grated out bitterly, his throat clenching against the threat of another wave of pain. This one was shorter than the first, but it hurt just as much, and Mal only barely managed to stay on his feet. "Gorram it," he hissed again. "Mother humping gorram it!"

It wanted to get out. Mal knew it had to happen eventually. He just didn't want to think about it, so he'd shut the idea out of his head... he hadn't payed attention. He had no rutting idea what he was supposed to do now that it... now that it...

PAIN PAIN PAIN-

Inara. She was still on the ship, in her shuttle. She knew. She could help. She was the only one who could. Forcing his eyes open, Mal stumbled down the hall and up the nearest set of stairs. Inara's shuttle was on the other side of Serenity, and it took all of Mal's strength to drag himself up the catwalks and in the direction of the Companion. All the while, he could feel a horrid, clammy wetness clinging to his skin.

He didn't want this to be happening now. He didn't want this to be happening at all. It was inside him, struggling to get out, and Mal was terrified. He'd fought a war, he'd been shot, he'd been tortured... but this scared him. He couldn't smirk or shoot his way out of this. He could come racing in with Serenity in the nick of time to get his people to safety. For one of the few times in his life, Malcolm Reynolds felt absolutely helpless.

Inara...

Her shuttle was just around the corner. Mal bit down hard on his tongue and forced his legs to carry him the rest of the way. She was the only one who could help him. He needed to get to Inara, and damn to hell the fact that he wasn't invited.