A/N Here's chapter 2 - I have a few more chapters already written that I'll definitely upload but may not keep writing if this story doesn't get a bit more traction. I won't withhold uploads for reviews or whatever because I hate when authors do that but I may not be able to invest time into a story that's not going anywhere. We'll see. I still love Firefly with all of my heart so that's probably an entirely empty threat anyway XD Let me know how you're feeling about Katia and any other suggestions/comments/questions you may have for the series. Thanks for reading!

After all of the passengers grabbed whatever they needed from the cargo bay and got settled, the whole ship gathered for dinner in the common area. Katia found herself sitting in between the Captain, who actively avoided her gaze, and Jayne, who actively tried to catch it with what she assumed was supposed to be a suggestive smirk.

Katia tried to listen to the conversation happening on the other side of the table between the Shepherd and others since Mal wasn't overly chatty, when Shepherd Book asked, "Captain, mind if I say grace?"

Mal replied gruffly, "Only if you say it out loud." Katia looked up to stare at Mal with wide eyes. She didn't consider herself to be a religious person, but she would never try to be rude to those that are. The Captain met her eyes for a moment before looking down at his plate to start eating. After a moment of silence, those that prayed started eating so Katia did as well.

"So, does it happen a lot," Simon asked to break the awkward silence. "Government commandeering your ship, telling you where to go?"

Mal responded, "That's what governments are for, get in a man's way."

One of the other passengers, who Katia vaguely remembered was named Dobson said, "Well it's good, if the supplies are needed."

Jayne gruffly replied next to her, "We're just happy to be doing good works." Katia rolled her eyes at that. Somehow, Jayne didn't strike her as the overly charitable type.

Dobson continued, "I hear a lot of the border moons are in bad shape. Plagues and famines…"

"Well, some of that's exaggerated, and some of it ain't. All those moons, just like the central planets, they're as close to Earth-That-Was as we could make 'em: atmosphere, gravity and such but," Zoe explained.

"Once they're terraformed, they'll dump settlers on there with nothing but blankets and hatchets and maybe a herd. Some of them make it, some of them…" Mal faded out when he noticed the discomfort on Katia's face. Must be from a border moon, Mal thought. Simon jumped in to keep the conversation going, "Then I guess it's good we're helping."

While the conversation on the other end of the table continued between Kaylee and Simon, Mal leaned over and asked Katia, "You settling in alright?" Katia turned to face the Captain and replied with a nod. "This ship's beautiful. One of the best I've traveled on."

"You do a lot of traveling," Mal asked, trying to get a bit more information on the mystery passenger. Katia nodded again before mumbling, "More than I'd like."

Just as Mal was about to reply, the pair heard Jayne say, "Little Kaylee just wishes he was a gynecologist." Katia almost choked on her food, and Mal immediately tried to shut Jayne up.

"Jayne. You'll keep a civil tongue in that mouth or I will sew it shut, is there an understanding between us?"

Jayne almost whined, "You don't pay me to talk pretty. Just because Kaylee gets lubed up over some big city –"

Growing irritated, Mal dismissed Jayne from the table. Jayne left in a huff after grabbing more food from the table.

After a beat of silence, Simon jumped in to ask, "What do you pay him for?"

Mal seemed startled. "What?"

Simon repeated the question, "I was just wondering what his job is, on the ship."

"Public relations." Katia chuckled at Mal's reply. She knew that what they were doing on Whitefall was not strictly legal based on the conversation she overheard between Mal and Wash. She guessed at this point that Jayne was some kind of gun man or something like that.

The meal seemed to wind down after that. Everyone started clearing their plates, and Katia offered to help with the dishes to thank them for the meal. She and Kaylee stayed back while everyone else went about their business.

"So," Katia started, turning to Kaylee, "how'd you get to be a mechanic on a ship like this?" Kaylee smiled. "It's a funny story actually. The ship was docked in my home town and the mechanic before me was pretty A-grade nan zi han, if you know what I mean." Katia giggled and nodded. "Well, anyways, we was rutting something fierce in the engine room when Cap interrupts, goin on about how they'd been stuck for longer than they wanted cuz of some broke engine part. I explained that the engine wasn't broke since the part wasn't needed anyway, and Cap offered me a job on the spot. Been with them ever since."

"That's great. The ship seems well taken care of," Katia complimented Kaylee. Kaylee replied, "Well, it's pretty easy to take care of. Ain't no place like Serenity."

They had finished the dishes so Katia decided to head back to her room for the night. When she did, she heard Dobson talking in his room as she walked past.

"They're here," she heard him say. "Should be no problem getting them into custody. Crew might put up a fight, but we'll take 'em all in anyway." Katia couldn't stop the gasp that escaped through her lips. Dobson looked up quickly. Before she could run away, he grabbed a hold of her arm. "How much did you hear?"

Katia couldn't form any words when she noticed the gun in his other hand. All she could do was shake her head. Dobson seemed to panic a bit before saying, "Doesn't matter. You're all going in anyway. Gotta make sure you don't warn them though."

Dobson flipped Katia around so her back was held tightly to his front with the gun held firmly in her sight to remind her not to do anything stupid. He moved her forward towards the cargo bay. As they got closer, she heard Mal and Simon talking to each other. Dobson pushed her to walk down the stairs.

"You're a lunatic," Simon breathed out while holding his cheek. Mal replied, "And you're a gorram fed."

Shepherd Book, who had just arrived in the cargo bay, noticed Dobson holding Katia, and said, "Hate to say it, Captain, but you've got the wrong man."

Katia watched Mal and Simon analyze Book for a moment before they followed the Shepherd's gaze to her and the fed. Dobson quickly shifted his gun from pointing at her to pointing at Mal, although he tightened his grip around her, so she was still stuck with him.

Seeing Katia and Dobson, Mal sighed out, "Son of a bitch."

Dobson proclaimed, "Drop that firearm, Captain Reynolds." Captain looked at Katia being held against the agent. After a quick calculation to see if there was any way he could fix this, he dropped his gun. "This is not my best day ever."

After Dobson was satisfied that Mal would not interfere, he turned his gun to Simon and said, "Simon Tam, you are bound by law to stand down." Katia's eyes widened. What if he knows about me too?

Mal looked surprised. "What? The doctor? Oh… Hey! Is there a reward?" Despite her precarious situation, Katia rolled her eyes at the Captain. The federal agent had a gun virtually to everyone's head and he was thinking about money.

Dobson ignored Mal and yelled, "Get on the ground. Get on the ground!" Katia couldn't tell if Dobson was deliberately tightening his hold on her or if he just forgot she was there. Either way, it was getting harder for her to breathe as his arm moved closer to her throat.

Simon tried to reason with the agent. "Lawman, you're making a mistake."

Mal jumped in. "I think you oughta get on the ground, son. Man seems a mite twitchy." Shepherd Book recognized the discomfort on Katia's face and stepped in. "I think everybody could stand to calm down a bit."

The gun was quickly turned towards the Shepherd. "This isn't your business, Shepherd."

Book continued trying to diffuse the tension while Katia was trying to figure out a way to wriggle herself free from the obviously panicky fed. "The boy's not going anywhere, Lawman. And neither is she. As I understand it, it's pretty cold outside."

Mal added, "Not to worry. We can hold Lord Fauntleroy in a passenger cell – won't make a peep til you hand him over to –" As he said this, Mal went to reach down for his gun.

Dobson saw this and moved the gun right back to Mal. His anger was showing as his arm grew tighter around Katia's throat. While Dobson was shouting about how everyone on the boat was culpable, Katia tried to claw her way out of his grip.

Mal stated calmly, "Well now. That has an effect on the landscape." Katia was finding it harder and harder to pay attention to everyone as her vision started getting spotty from the lack of air. Suddenly, a shot rang out and Katia turned to Kaylee to see her hit the doorframe and slide down to the floor with blood gushing from a wound on her stomach. After that, chaos exploded in the engine room. Katia elbowed Dobson in the stomach to finally free her from his arm, and Shepherd Book quickly knocked him out. He knelt down to grab the gun and asked Katia who had collapsed to the floor to catch her breath, "Are you alright?"

Katia nodded and coughed, not able to speak yet. Book left a moment later to make sure Jayne didn't kill the lawman. Katia was on all-fours trying to catch her breath. Definitely going to have a bruise, Katia thought with a grimace. Everything was so loud, people were shouting all over the place. Then she heard Wash call down, "Captain, we've been hailed by a Cruiser. Ordered to stay on course and dock for prisoner transfer." Katia looked up to watch the group in fear. They can't dock. I can't let them see me. She listened as Simon leveraged Kaylee's gunshot wound to force Mal to turn the ship around. Katia felt a flash of relief before it immediately melted into guilt. Kaylee's survival was still very much up in the air and here she was feeling happy that she wasn't going to get caught.

Shepherd Book and Jayne moved the unconscious lawman into his suite. Katia finally caught her breath and sat up. Let's not do that again. She slowly made her way to standing against the railing before she felt comfortable enough to head to the kitchen. Her throat was in desperate need of some tea.

A few moments of sipping the hot beverage loosened up her throat muscles even further, although she knew the bruising would be showing already. As Katia left the kitchen to head back to her room, she noticed Jayne looking in on the med bay from the observation window and walked up to him.

"I figured you'd be takin' revenge out on the dà tuó dà biàn by now," Katia said to get Jayne's attention. He snorted without looking at her.

"Shepherd thought I'd be a might too rough with him."

"And that's a bad thing why? He shot Kaylee and damn near choked me to death too," Katia nearly growled out that last part, causing Jayne to look up at her.

"That's gonna be one hell of a bruise."

Katia mumbled, "I've had worse." Somehow, Jayne heard that.

"Really now, pretty thing like you. What worse have you got," Jayne asked. He then pulled up his right sleeve to show a raised scar along his shoulder ridge. "This here I got from an actual arrow on a backwoods moon. Hadn't seen bow and arrow used since, well, ever before got shot with one."

Katia recognized Jayne's real purpose to distract himself from his obvious worry for Kaylee and smirked. She's been through a lot in her short life and definitely had the scars to prove it. She shifted her hair to the side and leaned back so Jayne could see the puckered skin of a burn behind her ear. "This is from the barrel of a laser gun just after it fired. Don't ask me why they didn't have a cooling device on it that's supposed to be standard cuz I really don't know."

Jayne countered with a spear wound to the shin. Katia had a gun shot graze on her right hip. Jayne showed his own gunshot wound on his back shoulder ("and it actually entered me too"). Katia shifted her pants up to show the long, thin scar running down the side of her left leg from a racer collision.

They were both running out of scars to show off, but the trading of wounds and stories helped lighten up the mood in a dark and twisty kind of way. After Jayne showed off a rather impressive knife wound on his stomach, Katia reached for the bottom of her shirt to show off the last one.

"Whoa now, what're ya doin'," Jayne asked. In his experience, there was only two reasons a woman takes off her shirt in front of him, injury and sexy times.

Katia snorted. "I'm showing you my last scar." Her shirt was pulled up and over her head, leaving her in her bra. She pointed to a wide and ragged circular scar right on the top of her left breast. "This is where I was literally stabbed in the heart." Jayne's eyes widened, struggling to stay focused on either the scar or her face. Trading scars and stories gave a Jayne a growing respect for Katia and as natural as it would be for him to check out the rest of her, for some reason he wanted to treat her the way he'd treat Zoe (so he only took a quick glance before focusing again).

"How'd you survive that?"

"Good timing and a lotta luck. The blade was wide but short, caused a lot of surface damage but thankfully didn't mess with too much stuff underneath."

Before Jayne could ask another question, a throat was cleared behind the pair. They turned quickly to see Mal watching the two.

"Captain, we were just…" Mal cut off Jayne's explanation with his hand. "What you two were doin' is your business." He turned to Katia then. "Realized you haven't met the last person on our ship. Thought you might like to now."

Katia realized she still had her shirt off and quickly pulled it back on. She grabbed her tea and stood up to follow Mal. "Lead the way. Thanks for the stories Jayne. You'll have to tell me more about how you won Vera later."

Mal and Katia walked away then and neither would ever tell anyone about the smile they saw on the mercenary's face as they walked away.

…

Mal led Katia over to one of the pods that flanked the cargo bay. He walked right in after a quick tap on the door. Katia waited at the door, feeling incredibly awkward about barging into someone else's space.

"What have I said about knocking?"

Mal replied, "I knocked. I just didn't do the waiting afterwards. This here's our last new passenger. She had a bit of rough time with that fed. Was wondering if you had any oils or something to help with bruises."

"Of course. Where is she?" Katia took that as an invitation to step into the pod. Turning the corner, she froze.

"Ina," Katia whispered. Inara's eyes widened as she realized who was standing in front of her.

"Kitty," she replied with tears quickly filling her eyes. The two rushed towards each other and pulled each other into a tight hug. They knelt down to the ground as both were overwhelmed by their reunion.

"So I take it you two know each other," Mal said after a moment, breaking the sounds of sniffling and sobbing. The pair loosened but stayed on the ground holding each other.

"We met at House Madrassa. I was her trainer for a time before she graduated and went out on her own," Inara explained.

Mal looked down at the mystery passenger who only seems to bring up more questions the more he gets to know her. "So you're a companion then?"

Katia cleared her throat and said, "Retired actually but yes, I was. Is that a problem?"

"No, no problem," Mal replied. "Just wanted to make sure we didn't have another reason to get pulled off course in the future." Inara rolled her eyes.

"Mal, if you don't mind, I'd like to get reacquainted. It's been a few years since we've seen each other."

Mal held his hands up in surrender. "Don't mind me."

"Alone," Inara replied pointedly.

"Fine, fine." Mal headed back towards the door.

"Oh, Mal," Mal turned back around to meet Katia's gaze. "If there's an update on Kaylee, could you send someone to let us know? I know I'd appreciate it and I'm sure Inara would too." Inara gave a nod in support.

Mal smiled in response and agreed before leaving, closing the door behind him.

Inara waited a moment before she turned toward Katia. "Mei-mei, let's get that throat dealt with."

Katia nodded and moved to the lounge area where Inara quickly set out her materials and got to work. It was silent but comfortable as the two settled into being near each other again. Inara finished up and leaned back to look at her.

"Where have you been Kitty? I haven't heard from you in months, haven't seen you in person in years. What happened?"

Katia began to tear up so she looked away quickly. "I fell in with the wrong crowd, trusted the wrong people. It all finally caught up to me." She looked back at Inara, who met her eyes with love and sympathy, and thankfully no pity. "I guess I didn't remember your lessons too well."

Inara smiled softly and leaned over to wrap Katia in a comforting hug. "What's done is done, Mei-mei. I'm just glad we've found our way to each other again."

Before they could say anything else, shouting was heard from the cargo bay. They both quickly made their way to the cabin door and ran down the stairs to join the crew.

Jayne had Simon in a choke hold as Mal sped over to the large silver box that accompanied Simon on to the ship.

Ignoring Simon's protests, Mal flicked open the latches and turned to the pair. "Let's see what a man like you would kill for."

Everyone watched with baited breath as the smoke cleared to reveal a young girl.

"Huh," Mal, and everyone else, was frozen. Inara took off her wrap with the intention of giving it to the young girl. Jayne loosened his hold on Simon in his shock, and Simon stepped forward.

"I need to check her vitals."

Mal snorted. "Is that what they're calling it?"

"She's not supposed to wake up for another week. The shock could –"

"The shock of what, waking up? Finding out she's been sold to some borderworld baron? Or, I'm sorry, was this one for you? Is it true love? Cause you do seem –"

Everyone jumped when the girl shot up from the box with a shout. She crawled her way out of the box onto the floor where she curled in on herself. No one else made a sound.

Simon ran over and knelt down to comfort her.

"River… hey, it's ok. It's ok. It's ok, I'm here."

Katia held her breath.

"Simon. They talk to me. They want me, they want me to…"

"No, they're gone. They're gone, they're gone. We're safe. We're safe now, I'm here." As Simon comforted River, Katia grabbed the forgotten wrap Inara held and moved forward. She offered it to Simon, who took it with silent gratitude and wrapped it around River.

"What the hell is this," Mal broke through the quiet.

Simon met his gaze. "This is my sister."

Another moment passed.

Katia cleared her throat and twitched silently when all eyes turned to her. "Why don't we let the doc check over his sister and get her settled, then get an explanation when he's done?" She met Mal's gaze directly and held it for a beat. "If that's alright with you, Captain." A quick nod was her only reply.

Simon slowly guided River to stand and escorted her forward towards the infirmary while the crew trailed behind. Inara pulled Katia to her side and held her tightly. They paused for a moment while Katia caught her breath. The two joined the group as Simon finished with River.

"I, uh, I'll stay here and watch over these two if that's alright. In case something happens," Katia nearly whispered. Inara gave her one last comforting embrace before she joined the others in the mess.

The silence in the infirmary was nearly deafening. Katia sat in the corner and sought comfort in the soft breaths coming from Kaylee and River, both asleep across the room. She took a moment to gather her thoughts. When Mal had stepped in for her in the alleyway, she had thought fate had thrown a gift into her lap. A way off the planet with a relatively respectable crew and a captain who didn't mind less than ideal payment? Seemed too perfect. And now that it's been all of a day, it turns out she was right. Being threatened, held at gunpoint, caught between fights that weren't entirely hers, Katia wasn't sure she was up to the excitement Serenity seemed to hold.