b We're on a Boat/b

Pairing: Dawn/ Connor established

Disclaimer: Both belong to Joss Whedon, which is absolute proof that he is a god.

Timeframe/Adjustments: This takes place about a year and a half after season seven of Buffy. For Angel, nothing that happened after Connor kills Jasmine has happened, which means they don't take over Wolfram and Hart. For Firefly, this is post series but pre-movie.

Author's Note: Happy New Year, Everyone! Thanks to everyone for the reviews.

Chapter 2

"Oh! Oh! Evil!" Once she had gotten over the shock, Dawn began to really take notice of the room and the people in it, and one of them was awfully familiar. She began pushing Dawn toward the stairs where Caleb was, "Go baby, kill the evil priest."

"I ain't a priest!" Mal interjected, "and I ain't evil neither."

"That's what all the evil minions say. Kill him Connor!"

"He doesn't smell evil." Connor tried to outmaneuver Dawn's insistent hand on his back pushing him toward the men with guns. "And he hasn't shot us yet, which is a vote in the non-evil column."

"That is Caleb! Evil women-hating priest Caleb."

"Hey!"

"You're wrong." The quiet voice came from the young girl on the catwalk to the left of Mal and Jayne.

"I never forget the face of a big bad and he was one of the biggest of all. Well, not physically biggest because that was the mayor, and even Angelus is bigger than Caleb. Not that I fought either of them, because I was just a little kid, and Buffy was all 'your too young brat' and 'just stay out of the way'. But this guy is at least bigger than Glory, which I didn't fight so much as get kidnapped by, but I was there for the big…"

Dawn's babble was interrupted by a loud giggle from the girl who'd interrupted her earlier. "Captain Daddy likes little girls."

"Hey now little witch, I don't like little girls none. You keep talkin' like that and the Sheppard's gonna give me another of his lectures about the Special Hell." Mal turned to the teenagers determined to get answer to his question, "I ain't evil, I don't like little girls, and I want to know why you're on my gorram boat?"

"I don't have to answer to an evil…"

"He's like books and beauty. You see but don't see, the eyes, the nose, the hair, the voice are all him, but you don't see the whole. He's not him." As the girl spoke she moved toward Mal placing herself in front of his left side out of his line of fire.

"Gorram moon-brain talkin' go-se is the last thing we need right now, Mal." Jayne mumbled to Mal, to low for the room's other occupants except one.

Dawn was starting to calm seeing the Caleb look-alike not killing the pretty brunette.

"Fine, maybe you aren't Caleb, but I'm watching you mister!"

"Fine, you watch me little girls, but while your doin' that you're gonna tell me how you got on my boat."

"Wait, back up. We're in space?" Dawn's mind finally processed what the Captain had told her before she accused him of being evil.

"Space, with aliens, jedi, and spaceships?" Connor asked.

"There are no such thing as jedi, Connor." Dawn said, then mumbled low enough for only Connor to here, "I'm never letting you watch a movie with Andrew again. Geez, embarrassing me in front of the aliens."

"There's no aliens, and I don't know what the hell a jedi is, but there's spaceships." When the teenagers continued to look confused, Mal continued, "You're on a spaceship, my boat is a spaceship and you're on my boat! Now answer the question."

Dawn and Connor looked each other in the eye and came to a decision.

"We don't know." Connor lied. These people already thought Dawn was crazy, so there was no point making it worse by talking about magic and demons.

"Cap'n, they just appeared in the middle of a big bright light! One minute it's just me in here then i poof /i there they were." Kaylee spoke up from the corner where she had finally stopped backing away. The girl seemed more confused and upset than dangerous, and the boy wasn't nearly as big as Jayne, or even Mal, so they were probably safe.

"People don't just appear, Kaylee. They had to come from somewhere. Third time in my recollection people ended up on my boat without us knowing, makes me a mite unhappy."

"I know what I done saw, Cap'n!"

"Great, Kaylee's gone moonbrain, too. It's probably catchin'," Jayne mumbled, earning a glare from each girl in the room.

"I'm not crazy" was yelled at Jayne from different directions by two equally irritated girls. While the third stared hard at the mercenary reminding him with just a look that she could kill him with her brain.

" i Ta ma de! Nimen de bizue/i I'm the gorram captain and I say no one needs be talkin' unless I ask a question, dong ma?"

"Yes Cap'n"

"Whatever."

"What?" Dawn asked, looking confused again.

"I ask a question, you answer, and nothing else, dong ma?" Mal repeated.

"He's going along making total sense, then bam he starts talking gibberish," Dawn said to Connor in a low voice that managed to carry through the entire room.

"You only speak when spoken to. You understand me little girl?"

"Mostly, and stop calling me 'little girl'."

"Good enough. And I'll call you whatever I want on my ship, little girl." Mal thought he was finally getting this situation under control. "Now you two just drop those swords on the floor."

Aside from their unexplained appearance, Mal thought the weapons they were carrying were the strangest thing about them. Swords weren't a real common weapon of choice in the 'verse, mostly just uppity folks like Atherton. Even those who do use them use light fancy blades not the sturdy, heavy things these kids had.

Dawn and Connor shared a glance before dropping their weapons. They needed to regroup and figure out what was going on before they could decide what to do. They weren't giving up much, there weren't many people Connor couldn't take out hand-to-hand, and the swords weren't much good against guns anyway.

When they dropped the weapons Connor felt the woman who had been behind them since shortly after the two men arrived move forward to pick up his and Dawn's sword. When he saw the woman his breath stopped and his stare froze on her face. When she noticed his interest she stared back steadily waiting to see if he'd attack. Connor took a deep breath and sorted through all the scents until he was focused only on the woman in front of him. He smelled gun oil, sex, a man, soap, but nothing of family, nothing that was him or Cordelia. This woman looked like Jasmine, but he knew she wasn't, so he gave her a slight nod and returned his eyes to the Captain who seemed to be in charge.

"So, are you going to tell us who you guys are, or this only a one way conversation?" Dawn asked to distract everyone from her boyfriends preoccupation with the scary but beautiful woman who took there sword.

"I thought I said you only talk to answer my questions." Mal stared at Dawn and she stared right back in a battle of wills that everyone remained silent for. "The lady on right is my second Zoe, the man behind me is Jayne, this is little River in front of me, and Kaylee over in the corner."

"Jayne? Like Tarzan and Jane?" Dawn asked doing her best to suppress a giggle and failing miserably.

"You makin' fun of me girl?"

"Oh come on, Jayne's a girls name!" She said as she broke into uncontrollable giggles.

"I ain't a girl!" As Dawn, and now River, continued to laugh, Jayne continued to get agitated, "I'll show you my man parts, girlie."

A growl cut through the room, silencing Jayne, and cutting off the cutting reprimand on the tip of Mal's tongue. As the teenage girls' laughter died down, everyone looked at the boy who was glaring at Jayne with teeth bared.

"Calm down Connor, your's are the only 'man parts' I'm interested in." Dawn said with an amused smile on her face.

"Captain, I think it might be best if we settle down and move this somewhere else, like the mess." Zoe pointed out reasonably.

"Zoe's right. We'll figure this out in the kitchen. Zoe and Jayne can escort our guests and Kaylee can go get the rest of the crew," the Captain instructed as he grabbed a hold of River's arm before she could flutter off. As Kaylee rushed off to do as told, and Zoe and Jayne moved to cover the stowaways, Mal took River aside to speak to her.

"You shouldn't be around here, little one. It ain't safe for people to be seeing you and your brother."

"They're my friends." River said with a look she generally reserved for Simon when he said something particularly stupid.

"You know them?"

"Yes, but not yet."

"O-kay, I ain't goin' to try to figure that out right now. You just stay in your quarters with Simon while these friends of yours are here." Then Mal gave River a nudge in the direction of the passenger quarters, and then headed up the stairs to the kitchen.

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Inside the bright yellow painted room Dawn and Connor stood a few feet from one end of the long dinner table, with the crew of the ship grouped at the opposite end. Sitting at the table were two that Dawn and Connor recognized. Jayne sat still holding his gun aimed at the two seeming ready to take them out should either attack, or call him a girl again. Kaylee, sat opposite him, having mostly gotten over her fear of the newcomers and feeling much more secure with the rest of the crew around her. The three others sitting at the table were new: at the head, an older pain with an aura of peace, a beautiful woman next to Kaylee that Connor identified as the source of the incense smell on the ship, and a man in a Hawaiian shirt as bright as any Xander ever wore. The Captain and Zoe were standing behind the older man at the opposite end of the table.

Mal opened his mouth to ask his first question when the sounds of a struggle could be heard just before River entered the room followed by a winded Simon who was clutching his stomach.

"Doc, I told you to keep your sister and yourself in your room."

"I tried Mal. She's insistent she needs to be here."

"Moonbrain don't know what she needs." Jayne muttered causing River to stick her tongue out at him as she walked by him and took a seat at the table.

"They already seen them now Cap'n no harm lettin' hear their story." Kaylee interjected before Jayne could retaliate against River.

"Besides Mal, if we can't trust them, we'll just kill'em and then it don't matter at all." Jayne said with a feral smile, "And I don't trust anyone," he added with a leer at the to teenagers.

"Fine, they can stay. Now do ya think we can get started."

In the silence, River looked around the room, before turning to Mal and saying, "All here now, you may start."