AUTHOR'S NOTE: This takes place after Serenity so yeah HUGE spoiler alert

AUTHOR'S SECOND NOTE: The Child Reclamation Act is not my original idea, nor is Firefly or Zoe or Wash but Cory is. . Besides the fact that my friend named him and we both came up with him and whatever…

The whole crew gathered in the dining room, impatiently waiting for an explanation. The blonde boy stood in the corner with River, his long bangs covering one of his eyes. Zoe stood at the head of the table, her hands folded.

"Cory has been my son for the seventeen years he's been in the 'verse. Me and-"

"But how?" interrupted Jayne. Zoe gave him a newly concocted I-was-just-about-to-explain look as Mal rubbed his forehead impatiently.

"Me and Wash met up at a party of some sort one day, and it was purely by chance we ended up working together on this ship. I wanted to keep Cory safe, because of the Child Reclamation Act. Since they wanted to take the children of criminals, I had to keep him invisible by spending most of my savings on his InvisiRing, which River told us now can't be fixed."

"So, he's been here through the war? Ever since I bought this gorram ship?" Mal said, nearly standing up. He'd never imagined Zoe would keep something like this from him.

"Well, sir, after the Child Reclamation Act, it was too late for me to let him be visible and just pop him into your life. One thing followed another and here we are."

"Where's he been sleepin'?" Kaylee piped up, a confused look on her face. Feeling it was time he said something, Cory responded.

"I've been using the spare passenger bunk. I make the bed every morning so nobody notices."

"How did you get fed?"

"Mom and Dad slipped me things from the table."

The crew sat in silence for a while as they got over the fact that someone just called Zoe 'Mom'. Mal was also wondering why they stole from him.

"How was it River knew…" Simon started, but he had answered his own question before it was finished. "How could you see him?" Simon directed the question to Zoe.

"How those things work, is whoever has worn the ring can see anyone else who's wearing it." Zoe hesitated, the blank look on Jayne's face forcing her to reword her sentence. "I've worn the ring before and so I can see whoever else is wearing it,"

"But how…"

"Don't ask me how it works Jayne; even I didn't understand."

"Oh." Jayne said

The crew sat in silence taking in the information they had just been told. Kaylee shifted in her seat, disturbed by the silence, while Mal just sat there thinking, Jayne looked confused as ever but there was no other way the story could be explained, Simon stood there looking at 'Cory' and just realized that River, who was standing to the right of Cory, had interlocked her left arm with Cory's right with her head resting on his shoulder, eyes half closed.

Simon was wondering why River had her head on Cory's shoulder. He was about to speak up but was interrupted by River standing up straight, un-interlocking her arm with Cory's and turning gracefully around to start walking back to the bridge to correct their course.