Thanks for sticking with the story, if you're still here! Hope you enjoy the chapter!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. This is all Joss Whedon's. And because I'm tired already of typing this, this disclaimer applies to this and all future chapters of this fic.
"Aaaand we're good," Wash said, leaning back in his jump chair, arms crossed jauntily behind his neck. "Well on our way to Triumph, where no one'd think to look for us."
"No tails?" Mal asked, double checking despite already knowing the answer.
"Nary a one," Wash replied lightly, brushing off Mal's questioning of his professional judgment (which would normally have had him bristling) in favor of questioning Mal himself. "If you don't mind my asking, Captain, what the hell happened back there?" he asked, his tone ending rather less sweetly than it began.
"Don't rightly understand it myself," Mal said, annoyance creeping in under his calm facade. "But we're about to find out." He pivoted and swept down the stairs, Wash belatedly moving to follow him. Mal was on a mission and he wasn't about to stop and wait for his pilot to catch up.
As Mal passed the infirmary, Simon stuck his head out. "If you don't mind my asking, Captain, what happened? Did the Alliance find us?" he asked worriedly.
Boy had a one track mind when it came to threat assessment, though he was right more often than not. "Not exactly," Mal replied tersely. He didn't offer any more information – not that he knew much more himself – nor did he slow his stride any, forcing the younger man to rush to catch up. Wash shot Simon a look of sympathy, but he didn't slow either.
The hold came into view, looking much like Mal had left it. Zoe covered the girl with unmasked suspicion, while Jayne looked at her with unmasked desire. Seeing Jayne's look, Mal assessed the girl again and found her to be quite attractive at second glance. Pretty enough face, at least, with large eyes, dark red cupid bow lips, and silky straight brown hair that pooled down into her lap on top of her delicate, motionless hands.
Yes, he'd have to watch Jayne around the girl. Mal'd planned on assigning him guard duty after this, and his plan hadn't changed, but he'd certainly have to keep a closer eye on Jayne to make sure he wasn't…distracted. Pretty or not, the girl was a threat and needed to be treated as such. The girl in question, for her part, looked just as implacable as before, either not noticing Jayne's leer or doing an impeccable job of ignoring him. She didn't so much as flinch as Mal stopped to stand in front of her, either, although Mal knew he cut an intimidating figure.
"Explaining time. I was all set to make myself some good cashy money," Mal said, with an air of forced patience. "And now I'm out in the middle of no and where with nothing in my pocket, and no goods on my ship, save for one girl who happens to be the cause of my previously listed problems. You can see how that might make a man a bit angry. And when I'm angry, I do things I might regret," Mal said threateningly, hoping to scare a reaction out of her.
"My apologies, Captain," the girl said, not sounding at all apologetic. "But that was the best outcome I could manage that satisfied both our needs. And I assure you, I'll make up for it."
"Sir, if the girl's a threat, we could always just drop her off on Triumph. The settlers would be happy enough to make sure she never left planet, and I'd be happy to be rid of her," Zoe said evenly. Whatever had happened in the hold between the time Mal left it and now had apparently not endeared the girl to Zoe.
"I'm beginning to wonder if we should even wait that long to get rid of her," Mal mused openly. He would never kill anyone who wasn't a threat to himself and his crew, particularly not a young woman, but the girl didn't know that and he was hoping to break her composure a bit. That certainty of hers was damned unsettling. Made him think she had more surprises up her sleeve…which she probably did.
"Whoa, whoa, hold on a second!" Wash cried, as always failing to read Mal's true intentions. "I don't know the whole story, but given that everyone's in one piece and she looks all of nineteen, what the girl's done can't be enough to deserve a spacing."
"What did happen, exactly?" Shepherd asked calmly, coming to join the arranged crew and defusing the tension before Mal could put Wash in his place.
"If I had a steak for every time someone asked me that question," Mal muttered to himself, before continuing. "Girl seems to have set the Feds down on us in Persephone. The how and why I am somewhat unclear about. But I'm sure she'd be more than happy to explain the whole thing to us. And it best be a mighty fine explanation."
"It is," the girl agreed. "The how is through a false tip, which will shortly be determined to be erroneous. The why was that you're the only ship to harbor and care for fugitives," here she inclined her head to indicate Simon, "that has shown a repeated history of being able to keep them hidden from the Feds, and towards whose crew I would not pass along a heightened level of threat from the Alliance."
"So you're a fugitive, then?" Mal said, the whole crew – for once – blessedly silent as he proceeded with his make-shift interrogation. "And here I thought you were signing on as crew," he continued sardonically.
"The Hell did a girl like you do to become a fugie?" asked Jayne, coarse and to the point as always.
"Me?" the girl asked rhetorically. "I won a chess tournament."
Mal shook his head, as though trying to clear it of all the extraneous variables threatening to cloud his view of the situation. "Look, let's start with the basics. What makes you not a threat to me and mine?"
"The folk after me are the same folk after River," the girl said, her confident veneer starting to fade, although she slapped it back on quickly. "They have a very particular way they go about doing things. Having two of us on board isn't going to be much more dangerous than just the one."
"Wait – so you were at the Academy, too, then," Simon said, cutting of Mal as he was opening his mouth to point out that he hadn't missed that qualifier. Not much more dangerous, indeed. "How'd you escape?"
Mal thought of interrupting him, to remind the boy that he was the one in charge of this interrogation, thank you very much, but found himself wanting to know the answer too much to contest the thwarting of his will.
"I had help," the girl said shortly, fighting back her first glimmer of true emotion but not revealing anything else.
"And what would make you so valuable to my crew, the way you said earlier?" Mal said, having calmed a great deal during this conversation. Now that he'd established the girl wasn't a (direct) threat to him and his crew, the part of his brain that had been drilled in being chivalrous to needy women was starting to try and speak up, and he was finding it increasingly hard to shove it back down.
"I can predict the future," the girl said, face void of any sign of deception.
"Like, with crystal balls?" Jayne asked confusedly. The girl rolled her eyes, but didn't deign to reply. At least she seemed to have a sense of humor, even though she was obviously 疯了.
"You can't rightly expect a man to believe that," Mal said flatly.
"It's the truth," the girl said. "Give me a week or so, or even a mere day and I can prove it. But in the meanwhile, trust in your gut because I'm sure it knows I'm telling you the truth."
Damned if the girl wasn't right, much to Mal's displeasure. Around them, the crew began to murmer.
"你们都闭嘴!" Mal called out, exerting his authority. The crew fell silent around him, for once, blessedly, having listened to his orders.
"Look," he said, addressing the girl. "I don't know you. And I ain't so certain I believe your story. Hell, I know I don't believe your story. You have until we get to Triumph to convince me otherwise, to prove you're not a threat and can be an asset to this crew. If you convince me, I may let you stay on. But if I'm not convinced by the time we get there, we go with Zoe's plan. And if you step so much as one toe out of line in the meanwhile," he said threateningly, although immediately regretting the metaphor, "I reserve the right to toss you out the airlock."
The crew began to talk amongst themselves again, his words having stirred them up, but Mal didn't care anymore as he strode out of the hold.
"You have three days," Mal called over his shoulder. "Best get started."
"Thank God," the girl said feebly, showing the first sign of weakness since she'd made her way onto the boat earlier in the day. Then she promptly slumped in her chair, unconscious.
Thanks to CreativeReading and LoneWolfOneill for the reviews, they were greatly appreciated and gave me the kick that I needed to post this latest chapter. :)
