A/N: Don't say it... It's been *cough cough* too long.


"Never saw our boat, never knew my name, never saw my face durrin' the wave. Simple as that." Mal sat at the table discussing the new developments with Kaylee and Zoe over coffee that morning.

"Too simple, ya ask me." Mal only glared across the table at Zoe – not quite angry, but that look that said, why ya always gotta go and be logical?

"Riv onboard?" Kaylee asked.

"Seems to be. Figure she sees the logic in the plan." He caught a small smile from Zoe out of the corner of his eye, then it was gone.

"And what's that, Sir?"

"A sister might know where to find her brother, how he operates and such, better'n us. Also, Harrow was the one sent Richard Allan our way in the first place. Conjure he might have some light to shed on things." Zoe nodded thoughtfully and Mal continued. "And, things go to plan, we have a whole boatload of shiny cargo – and payment – from Harrow."


The lights were low and the fabric around the interior muffled the sounds of the men talking outside. She sat stock still, tea in hand. Likely it was burning her fingers, though she only felt a mild warmth. She was getting so tired.

The sound of the shuttle entrance opening with a soft clang brought her back to the here. She smiled softly at the man standing in the hatchway, and sat down her teacup gently. "Who won?"

"Simon."

The men had been playing at cards, the stakes – who takes the tent for the night against who got to sleep beneath the stars. Inara had offered her couch plenty of times. Jayne and Simon had politely declined for good and all a few months ago, after it became apparent who'd be spending the nights sharing the Companion's bed.

"Jayne says he'll take his chances finding a woman in town," Allan continued. "'Rather sleep in a bed than a ruttin' tent anyhow.' Such a pleasant fellow." He moved forward to the couch and reached for Inara's hands to help her stand. "Aiya! Boa bai. Have you been pressing your hands against the fuel core when I'm not looking?"

"In the tea houses on the central planets the saying is too hot to hold is too hot to drink. That's why the teacups traditionally have no handles. I suppose I forgot."

"Sit down here." Allan ushered her over to her bed. "I've found a present for you." He pulled out a vial of powder and a syringe full of liquid. Sticking the needle into the vial, he began the process of reconstituting the drug.

"How did you find it?" Inara asked, the tightness easing from her voice a bit at the prospect of the now milky liquid in the vial.

"It's what I do," he said, paying more attention to the vial in question. She lowered her left arm to him, palm up, ready for the injection before he even had the liquid drawn back into the syringe. Allan prepared to administer the drug as she had shown him a time or few before, just after supplies began dwindling. He stopped, the needle hovering above her arm. "Why isn't Simon doing this? Does he even know? Maybe if you tell him he could – "

"I've seen the doctor, and he's seen me," she cut him off. "Now, please."


Simon stood at the edge of the clearing that had housed the shuttle these past few months. He stared up at the night sky, the two sister moons of Shiva reflecting the light of the stars back at Ariopolis. Their own light drown out their existence to his naked eye, leaving only ghost images at the edge of his vision. River could explain it one hundred times more eloquently, and Kaylee… she'd wistfully look at the night sky, any number of dreamy sentiments falling from her lips. Ain't it just so pretty? His mind called up the sound of her voice and it brought an ache to the pit of his stomach.

He winced and turned back to the darkness of the clearing as he heard the shuttle door clang open and shut again. The scuff of boots on the dirt told him of Allan's approach.

"Is she sleeping?" Simon asked as the sound of footsteps stopped a few yards from him.

"Pretty much passed out. She's, ah… been having me give her…"

"Metaceim injections," Simon offered. "It's a cocktail of Metaclopromide Cefazolin Imipenem and a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory. It's good she's sleeping. Her body is getting some relief. She's been very taxed lately."

"And just what the hell does she need it for, Doctor?" Simon couldn't tell if Allan was more aggravated that he still didn't know what was going on or that he had to get his information from Simon.

"Very simply…," he sighed. He was tired, and homesick – actually homesick – for Serenity. And for Kaylee and River. "She needs it to live."


Mal stepped lightly into the cockpit. He hadn't seen River since the night before but he was fair certain he'd find her there. Both chairs were empty, however, only the plastic dinosaur figurines keeping watch over the controls. He shifted his attention from the girl to the Black. He could scarce remember the last he'd had a chance to stare out into the vastness of her. I like an easy, languorous journey, he'd said to Wash once. That was the truth of it, though it never did turn out that way.

"I wonder what that would be like," River mimicked Kaylee's response from her seat on the stairs at the fore of the cockpit.

"You re-work my course again, Albatross?"

"Shaved eighty-seven minutes off of our time."

"Little proud to out-pilot me?" Mal asked as he moved down to the steps to take a seat near River.

"I take no pride in it, Captain. I simply like to make the journey in the most logical way possible."

They were both silent for a time as Mal watched River staring out into the Black. He sighed heavily, not knowing really why he felt the need to say it, but out of his mouth it came. "People are afraid of the darkness 'cause it holds pieces of us we're busy denyin'." River turned her head aside, not looking at him straight on but out of her periphery. He couldn't tell what she was thinking then, and gorramit, when could he? "My ma used to tell me that. On Shadow. I think of that sometimes, when I'm lookin' out there… most nights."

"I've loved the stars too much to be afraid of the night."

Mal thought he saw a slip of a smile cross her face. "My kind a woman," he replied without thinking. As he realized what he had said he hoped River would change the subject.

"Never talk about your mother. Or Shadow."

And change the subject she did.

"Yeah… well. Don't much wanna talk about what's past. Too much to think on, can't be changed." River nodded her head slowly, scooting up a step to sit between where Mal's feet rested. "You don't much talk of Simon," he offered, trying to regain control of the conversation. "Excepting finding him, you ain't mentioned the doc in a good long while."

"Don't much wanna talk about Simon right now," she whispered, mimicking him. She leaned up then, running her hand through his hair.

"What do you wanna talk about?" Mal gulped.

"Whiskey."

The bottle sat on the galley tabletop between a tin coffee mug and a delicate porcelain teacup. Mal had stopped counting shots a quarter of an hour ago, and he'd certainly lost track of whether River was matching him.

"Not the first time I walked in on Kaylee in th'engine room, but the look on your brother's face… I mean, he deserves his privacy much as any man, but gorram, it was an entertainin' sight to see." He watched her smile warm as she no doubt plucked the memory from his head – found he didn't mind so much this time. Must be the whiskey.

"Captain's walked in on all the crew during. Even the Companion, though she doesn't know it."

Mal felt his cheeks redden. He reached for the bottle to pour another shot into the tin mug. "Time never was I could walk 'round my own ship without stumbling on something private." He cleared his throat. "Don't recall ever catching you in a compromising position, though, Albatross."

"Respect my privacy almost as much as your own. Doesn't make what you say true, however."

Mal's eyes darted from the drink in his hands to the girl, sitting up straighter now in her chair, a cocky grin creeping at the corners of her mouth. "Shi ma?" he asked, turning his mouth down, contrary to the look on her face.

River leaned closer to him, reaching for his drink. "There was the sake," she reminded him as she brought the cup to her lips.

"Well," his voice sounded rough and quiet. "Yeah. There was that."

"And the time you first met her." Mal looked confused now. "In the cargo bay. Cold and clothed in fog. You were mad at Simon. Thought he – "

"Qingwa cao de liumang. But you were… You remember that?"

"Remember this." River stood from her seat and swept her bare feet the few paces that separated them across the metal floor of the galley.

Mal thought then, he must've had more to drink then he should rightly have allowed in mixed company, bein' that his body was slow to respond when his mind said to stand up and walk away. Before he could sort that out, though, River was settled on his lap with one leg to either side of him, leaning closer by the second. "Kě yào xiǎoxīn," he managed to get out before she covered his mouth with her own.

The warm buzz of the whiskey, mixed with the warm body of the woman in his lap, momentarily shut off all care or worry that had plagued his mind the second before. It had been almost half a year since he'd held her like this and he had forgotten how natural it felt.

He suddenly found his hands resting on her hips, his fingers exploring the slight roughness of the linen pants sitting just below her waist compared with the warm skin above them; found his hands moving up to her waist, resting just below the hem of her loose tee-shirt; found himself stopping there. Taking a firm hold then, he lifted her to her feet and made it to his own in a quick, albeit awkward motion. "I said, be careful, now."

As he looked down on her face turned up toward his, her eyes opened to look at him beneath darkened lids, heavy from little sleep these past weeks and months. And in a split of the next second she'd turned on her heel and headed away from him again. Mal shut his eyes tight against the weariness and frustration that girl couldn't help but conjure in him.

"Riv," he called after her. When the only answer was the scrape of metal on metal that said she'd climbed down to her bunk, he opened his eyes in defeat. He was left alone next to the table, the two cups and the bottle they'd shared. No sense wastin' good whiskey, he thought as he picked up the bottle and trudged in the direction of his own bunk.

Twelve steps counted down the ladder and a steady gaze on the floor beneath him led Mal into the small space without incident. But – now it coulda been the drink, and likely had something to do with it – but that creepifying feeling, made the hairs stand on the back of his neck, it was there now. He needn't scan the room to know why, neither.

"You're being careful enough for the both of us," she said softly, sitting on the edge of his bed, all proper and polite, like she had every right to be there.


Shi ma - How's that
Qingwa cao de liumang - Frog humping son of a bitch
Kě yào xiǎoxīn - (We) had better be careful