"Father?" She waited for her eyes to adjust to the low lighting, making out a bed against the far wall.
"Elena?" Her father's voice, but not how she remembered it. This was weak, almost querulous. "Are you real? Or a ghost?"
She approached the bed, the soft glow of a shrouded bedside lamp throwing lingering shadows on the face of the man propped on the pillows. "I'm real," she said quietly. "And if I were a ghost I think I'd be a lot younger."
"A sense of humour?" He laughed, a damp sound. "When did you grow one of those?"
Her breath caught at the sight of him. He'd always been so big, so tall, and now he was dwarfed by his surroundings. Her mother had aged, for sure, her dark hair now white, but at least she still looked almost the way she remembered.
She wasn't sure she would ever have recognised this man in front of her.
"I've always had a sense of humour, Father," she managed to say. "I had to have. With a brother like Alex."
He wheezed again, but this time in distress. "Oh, Lena. I'm so sorry."
"Wh … what?" she stammered, startled.
"For driving you away from your family. I missed you so much." He reached out a frail hand towards her.
She sat down in the chair by the bed, not realising she'd taken it between hers until she felt thin fingers curl around her palm. "But you … you had Alex. I wasn't ever a part of –"
Ivan Rostov shook his head. "I was so incredibly stupid. I thought a son was all I wanted. Every day I wanted to tell you what you meant to me, and I wouldn't let myself. I was so wrapped up in the family name that all I thought about was Alex. And then it was too late."
She closed her eyes, remembering the days, weeks even, when he'd hardly said a word to her, just looked at her as if she was a disappointment. Somehow she couldn't believe this was the same man. "Too late," she echoed softly.
"Only now I have a second chance."
"Do you? You think I should give you that chance?"
"Please."
"Father, I -"
He spoke quickly as if she might stop the very words before they left his mouth. "I love you, Lena."
Suddenly she realised it didn't matter if this was true or not, if this was the purging of guilt, or a true display of how he honestly felt. Something twisted inside her, unknotting, something she hadn't even known was there. A tear slid down her cheek. "Oh, Papa." She realised what she'd said. "Sorry – Father."
He smiled. "No. Papa's nice. I like to hear you say it." The smile faltered and his body contorted, his grip tightened on hers.
"Are you in pain?" She leaned forward, placing her free hand on his forehead.
"Yes." He admitted, gasping, his voice forced from between clenched teeth, tight and distorted. "They can't do anything. Nothing … nothing works any more."
"Then let me."
"How?"
"Look into my eyes. Just let me in."
He forced his eyes open, doing as he was told, and suddenly he realised she was inside his mind. It was like she'd stepped into him, walking through all the dark places, closing off doors, locking them and taking the key. Taking the pain. His eyes grew wide with surprise, and more than a little trepidation. "Lena… how did you …"
"It's okay, Papa. It won't hurt anymore." She felt someone enter the room behind her, but didn't turn.
"What did you do?"
"Does it matter?"
"No." He breathed easily for the first time in weeks. "Thank you." He looked past her. "And who's this?"
Freya didn't need to turn. "I think it's my husband."
Mal stepped forward into the light so his father-in-law could see him. "Sir. I'm Malcolm Reynolds. Freya … she's my wife."
"Freya …" Ivan tasted the word in his mouth. "That's what they call you?"
"Yes, Papa."
"There was a girl, at the Academy. I think you roomed together …"
Freya nodded. "I took the name from her. My best friend." Her brow furrowed. "How did you know about her?"
"I read the letters."
Freya swallowed. Her letters. The ones she'd written before … when they were full of the things she'd learned, the fun she was having, the hopes and dreams she'd believed she could see being fulfilled. Before the darkness. "Oh." She couldn't say anything else. Her mouth was too dry.
Her father understood. "And are you looking after my daughter?" he asked Mal, something of the old Ivan Rostov coming to the fore.
"I'm trying, sir." Mal stood behind his wife, his hand on her shoulder. "When she lets me."
"She always was independent."
Mal couldn't help the slight smile. "Not the only one, sir."
"And your children?"
"Boy back on my boat. Name of Ethan." He glanced down. "And this little one. Our daughter. In a coupla months."
"Daughter." Ivan nodded. "Talk to her, Captain Reynolds. Let her know she's loved. Don't be like I was."
"I'll try not to be," Mal said.
Ivan's troubled eyes fixed back on Freya. "Lena, I'm sorry."
He'd given her time, and now Freya had regained some semblance of balance.
"For what?"
"Never being there for you."
She smoothed the bedcover. "That's okay."
"No. It isn't." He shook his head. "I think I was afraid of you, a little."
"I know." It still hurt. How could it still hurt after all this time?
"But when we were told about the … when we thought you'd died … your mother was inconsolable. I … I had to call Dr Mason, ask him to sedate her. She wouldn't stop crying." He squeezed her hand again. "I wish I could say I cried too, but I didn't. It took a long time, expecting to hear you clattering along the hall and being shushed by your mother, to turn a corner and almost find you sitting with Alex at the bottom of the stairs playing cards … only you weren't. It took a long time, Lena. But I … I began to miss you."
She wanted to tell him it was too late by then, far too late, but she held her tongue. These were all things she had needed to hear when she was a child, not an adult. "I missed you." All my life, she wanted to add, but didn't.
Still, he seemed to understand. "It should never have taken your death to make that happen. Forgive me, Elena." His eyes were beseeching.
"I forgive you, Papa," she whispered.
"Thank you." He smiled, then laid his head back on the pillow.
"Can I get you anything?" she asked. There was no response. "Papa?" Still nothing. She reached out her mind. "No … Mal, get Alex," she said urgently. "And … and my mother."
Mal ran out of the room, and Freya squeezed her father's hand. "Hold on," she murmured, trying to keep him in this place, this moment.
Genia Rostov and her son rushed in, and Freya gave up her place next to him. She back up, reaching Mal, hearing her mother calling brokenly for Ivan. She turned, giving Mal an agonised look, then hurried out of the room, not stopping until she was halfway down the corridor. Leaning on the wall, she felt Mal's arms go around her, his strength holding her up as she turned into his embrace, clutching him.
It seemed an age, but was perhaps an hour, during which time Mal found an empty room and made Freya sit on the sofa there, watching people pass by the door, back and forth, until it was quiet.
"It's over," she breathed.
"You could have stayed," he said softly. "Said goodbye."
"I said that a long time ago, Mal."
Then he felt her tears falling on him, and knew she was grieving too.
After another half an hour, after Freya had cried herself dry, Alex appeared in the doorway.
"He's gone." He was standing very straight, holding himself together with difficulty.
"I know." Freya reached out, taking him in her arms. For a moment he didn't respond, then he held her tightly.
Mal stood back, watched, ready for whatever she needed.
Alex let go suddenly. "There are things to be done. Arrangements to be made. About the … about his body."
"Where will you –"
"Home. In the family mausoleum."
"Oh." She remembered that place. He'd once told her it was haunted, and if she didn't do what he said the ghosts would come out and get into her room, dangling their headless bodies over her and moaning. Despite the fact that if they were headless they shouldn't be able to moan, it terrified her. But it was only later that she came to realise there were worse things in the 'verse than brothers telling stupid scary stories.
She knew he remembered too, from the look on his face. "Sorry."
"We were children."
"Somehow, that doesn't make it all right."
"No, I suppose it doesn't."
"We have to get going. Mother doesn't want to … I'm sorry, Frey."
"Then that's our cue to leave."
"Yes."
He walked with them through the ship, back to the main forward hatch. As he opened it, the coolness of Persephone's early dawn slipped inside. They stepped out, each taking a breath of what passed for fresh air.
Not wanting to intrude, Mal took a few paces back, leaving brother and sister to their private goodbyes.
"Mal. Everything okay?" Jayne slid into view.
"Depends on your definition of okay, but we're … okay."
"Right." The big man shook his head. There were days when the Cap sounded crazier than his moonbrain. "You coming home?"
"Yes. It's over now."
"You want me to hang around?"
"No. Head on back. We'll be along shortly."
The big man nodded, disappearing into the grey half-light. Mal turned back to Freya.
"No, Alex." She was shaking her head at something he'd said.
"At least think about it."
"I don't need to. No."
"Frey –"
"Alex, don't argue."
He smiled a little, even in his sorrow. "You never used to talk to me like that."
"I'm not the same little girl you once knew."
"I've come to realise that."
She stepped closer to him. "Alex, you have to tell Mother not to contact us."
"Freya, I can't –"
"You have to. If anyone finds out, if they figure that I'm … Elena has to be dead."
"It'll hurt her."
"I know. But it's not safe, not for any of us. You don't know what they'll do, to any of us. It's better if you forget I ever existed."
"I can't do that."
"Pretend."
"Like those stories you used to tell me?"
"What stories?" she went to ask, then remembered. Eight years old, sitting in the tree house out in the estate, with a parcel of goodies Bridget, their cook, had put together for them, munching on cookies and drinking fizzy lemonade. She'd make up stories, tales of daring do, peopled with space pirates and Companions, law breakers and law givers, where the good guys always won, and carried off the prize, and the lady. She could still see Alex lying there, on his front, his chin resting in the palms of his hands, captured by her every word. Being her brother. She'd forgotten.
"I guess I can do that," Alex said, nodding sadly.
"Thanks." She looked into his face, so familiar. "And if you get an anonymous wave once in a while, that's coded, well, don't just delete it. Read it. And there might – and I say might – be an occasional capture attached."
"That … that would be shiny."
She smiled. "Alex, you really don't sound right saying that word."
"Why not? It's what you say."
"I know. But I'm the wife of a transport captain. It's kinda more fitting."
"Then that would be nice. And just who might these captures be of?"
"Oh, just a friend. And a friend's children, maybe."
"Ethan?"
"No-one by that name. But perhaps a little boy. And a baby girl, when she's born."
"Freya, I don't want you to put yourselves at risk over this."
"I won't do it if it's risky."
He nodded. "Mother would like it. So would I. You know, I could tell Ethan was your son. I only saw him for a minute, but … he looks like you, Elena."
"He looks like Mal," she corrected him. "And I don't mind that. He's going to grow up breaking hearts."
"Like your husband did?"
"Maybe." She chuckled. "And I wouldn't be surprised if he grew up listening at keyholes like his father, as well."
"There ain't no keyhole to be listening at," Mal said, stepping close to her again.
"That doesn't stop you."
"Well, no. That's true."
"Alex." Madam Rostov stood in the open hatch. "It's time to leave." She looked at her daughter. "Time to go home."
Freya crossed the dirt of Eavesdown to say goodbye, leaving Mal and her brother standing in the murky dawn light.
"Here." Alex held out a slip of paper. "The details of the job."
"Arnheim's stuff?" Mal looked surprised.
"I told you, it's real. Waiting to be collected from a warehouse on the east side, and transported to Boros." He pulled a small bag from his pocket. "And it's what was agreed."
"Not half now, half when we deliver?"
"I trust you."
Mal's lips curved. "Alex, if you're planning to spend any more time here on Persephone, or anywhere further out, you're going to have to learn a few home truths."
Freya's brother smiled. "So you're not trustworthy?"
"Well, no. I mean, yes, I am. But there are a helluva lot more out there that ain't."
"Does Freya say that?"
"What?"
"Ain't."
"Oh, only most of the time."
"She's really fitted in here."
"Alex, she's been Freya most of her life."
"I think I've realised that."
---
They walked back towards Serenity, wrapped in each other, barely saying a word.
Until …
"He is my brother, you know," Freya finally said softly.
"I know. There's too much of a resemblance to be coincidence."
"For so long I thought they didn't care," she said softly, then shivered.
Mal took off his coat, and slipped it around her shoulders. She pulled it close about her, feeling the heat of him emanating from the fabric.
"Time, Frey," Mal replied, putting his arm back around her, his hand on their baby. "Time changes so much."
"Mal."
"Uh-huh?"
"She … they offered me a share."
"What?"
"Of the family money."
He halted, and she took a step forward, out of his arms, before she could stop herself.
"Family money?"
"The Rostov fortune."
"I see." He hitched his thumbs into his gunbelt. "And what did you say?"
"What could I say?" She would have mirrored his actions but her belly was in the way. She contented herself by resting her hands on top of her daughter. "I turned it down."
"Right." There was no inflection in the word, no indication of what he was thinking.
She was tempted, sorely tempted to look, but didn't. At times like this, he needed to know his thoughts were sacrosanct. "You think I was wrong, don't you?"
"About what?"
"Not taking the money."
His brows drew down. "What makes you think that?"
"It could have kept us flying for … well, pretty much forever. Bought all the new parts Kaylee wanted, made sure we had the best food, wouldn't have to work …"
He closed the gap until there was barely daylight between them. "You ain't reading me, are you?"
Her eyes dropped. "I could have used it for us," she admitted grudgingly.
He felt the tug on his lips. "You made the right choice."
"What?" Her head flew up.
"You did the right thing, Frey. Now, as much as I'd like to give Kaylee every little bit she asks for, and I'm kinda fond of eating occasionally myself … but we get by. We always have. Jobs, legal or otherwise, well, they come up and we do them. We get by."
"But –"
"I won't have you feeling beholden to them, Frey. That ain't you. Hasn't been for a long time. You keep telling me you're not Elena Rostov anymore. And that's true. You're Freya Reynolds. My wife. And what I got is half yours."
"And the other way too. But it could have been so much more."
"And what would we have done with it? Sitting around all day scratching ourselves?"
Freya laughed, and he relaxed a little. "As much fun as that sounds, I don't think you'd be happy with that."
"Exactly." He tugged her to him. "Little Elena Rostov died in a fire. Ain't good, and there's nothing that can be done about it. You're Freya Reynolds. And if Freya Reynolds is as poor as a church mouse, so be it. Don't want their money, Frey. Don't need it."
"And when we do?"
"Then you can say I told you so, in a loud and clear voice that penetrates our ears and makes our blood run cold."
"Can I hold you to that?"
"Surely can."
They held each other for a long while. Then she spoke softly.
"Mal, I … Breed …"
He sighed. "You want to stay for a while."
"Well, you've got that job, taking Arnheim's goods to Boros. And it's only four days there and back at the moment, Boros being at its closest point right now –"
"I do know my astro-navigation, Frey," he pointed out softly.
"What I'm saying is that's it's less than a week."
He gazed down into her hazel eyes. "You know, you gave me permission to get Simon to dope you if you told me to leave you behind again."
"This isn't the same."
"No?"
"Two days there, two days back. Two plus two is –"
"I can also add up, thank you."
"Mal, seeing my father like that, being there when he … when he died, I don't want Dillon to go through that alone."
Mal's arms tightened a little. "You think Breed's likely to?"
She nodded slowly. "He's barely hanging on, Mal."
"And what if I said no?"
"Well, you are captain."
"Good. Glad it's finally sunk in."
"So I suppose a little mutiny would be in order."
He narrowed his own blue orbs at her, but she just smiled. "You know what they do with mutineers, don't you?"
"If you were going to shoot me, I think you'd've done it before now."
"Don't tempt me, woman." He sighed.
She knew she'd won. "Thanks."
"Four days. We get back, he's still knocking at death's door, we're going."
"Mal –"
"That's the deal."
She considered it for a moment, biting her lip. "Okay," she finally agreed. "Deal." There'd be time to renegotiate. Turning in his arms, they continued back towards Serenity.
…
..
.
"No," she whispered, tossing and turning, her body heated to an unbearable degree. "No!" she shouted, reaching to push something away.
Mal rolled over, trying to pull the vestiges of consciousness together. "Frey?"
She didn't wake, her hair soaked with sweat.
"Frey!" He touched her, almost burning his hand on her skin. She threw out an arm, her fist just missing colliding with his head until he grabbed for her, holding her against him, careful not to press on the baby. "Frey, wake up!"
She shuddered, fighting him, her breath coming in short gulps as if she was drowning.
"Gorram it, Frey! You wake up right now or I'm calling the doc!" Mal shouted in her ear, fear washing through him.
She whimpered, trembling, pulling away from him, then collapsing back against his body as if all her bones had turned to water. Still she didn't wake.
Now Mal was really scared. He laid her gently back against the pillow and scrambled to the com.
"Simon! Get your ass down here now!"
