NOTE: This chapter may, indeed, have been the whole point of writing this fic. And behold, at last we have a chapter with lots of YoSaf in it.

Chapter 3

"Mal!" Her lower lip quivered, and her shoulders slumped, her hands half reaching toward him. "Thank God you came!" A hesitation on her part, then while he was still staring dumb at her trying to figure what to make of all that, he found himself suddenly in danger of asphyxiation courtesy of the redhead clamped to his chest. She sniffled into his shirt, and maybe it was his own smutty mind couldn't help but note just how her body was pressing 'gainst his and where. After a moment, she pulled back a fraction and looked up at him out of big, tearful eyes in a reddened face. Her fingers clawed themselves in his shirt and they pulled, like a little cat. "It was so horrible," she whispered. "He said he was going to hurt me, Mal. I thought that you weren't coming. I was so afraid I wouldn't be able to get away... He threatened to do such terrible things to me - "

"Aw, hey now." Mal patted her back all conciliatory, and leaned his face down into hers, giving her a real close view of his grin. "We both of us know you were never in no danger and you ain't but stringing me a line of lese."

She stilled in his grasp, and now he had an arm slung 'round her she couldn't move so easily. Her expression collapsed into irritation oh-so-very briefly 'fore she pasted over that with a smile. "Still, honey. It's so sweet that you came. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy." She cuddled up to him purposefully, and one of her hands somehow wriggled downwards.

"Hoo! Whoa." He let go of her and jumped back, and she tipped her head and gave a lopsided smile sweet as could be and downright dangerous. Her hands were curled together demurely, flush to her body between her thighs. "Think we're getting a bit familiar with the touching there. You keep your claws to yourself."

"Aw, hubby... How can you say that? Don't you love me any more? Or are you just afraid it might not be your pistol goes missing this time?" She smirked.

"Let's say we ride past the old ritual of pretending you and me have a relationship and skip right to the decent, honest shouting." Mal stuck a hand down to check his gun was, in fact, still in place, and curled his thumb through his belt, keeping ready. "What the hell you doing with Niska? Would've placed good money on him not being your kind of scene. Or did you decide you like a side of torture with your thievin' and conniving?"

'Saffron' scrunched her face in disgust and gave him an aggravated look. "I'm not working with Niska, that shrivelled piece of crap hun dan - "

"Let me guess. Already too married?"

"No, you donkey's fang pi." She looked offended in the extreme. "I do have some standards. Anyway, that old bastard doesn't get his rocks off unless someone else is screaming. You can count me surprised if they didn't drop off years ago from lack of use. Still, less reason to pity his bitch wife." She paused and got her breath back from the outpouring of bile. "I was just minding my own business when his rutting goons picked me up and hauled me back to this xi niao dump. Damn it, Mal, is there anything you're good at besides making enemies?"

"Not terribly," Mal responded flatly. "Is there any pressing reason Niska should've made you for my so-called better half, in amongst all those other fellows you're likely not on record as having married neither?"

She tucked her head down into her shoulders, smiling again. "I had to get some return on you, after your people made off with the lassiter. You don't begrudge me that, surely?"

Dear God... "What the hell am I gonna find you done and gone signed my name to?" he snapped, but she just raised one shoulder and rolled her head suggestively over to that side, eyes sliding away from his. "No... no, don't even tell me!" He jabbed a finger in her face. "With a bit of luck I'll need never find out. Least I'm guessing you won't be looking to be 'Mrs Reynolds' a while - ain't the smartest of moves when hubby dear got enemies like Niska sniffing around."

She looked sour on him and stuck out her tongue.

"Very fetching. Speaking of which, that's a real nice look for you. You hoping to pick up husbands or groceries?"

"Hoping to get the hell off this overheated rock, as a matter of fact. Mal, tell me you've got that rustbucket of yours lying around here some place and aren't feeling too adverse to giving a girl a lift?"

He laughed, and leaned back against the wall, drawing his pistol and spinning it in his hand without particular threat, and she responded by starting to pace over the same few feet of ground in front of him, hands clasped now behind her, her eyes never leaving him. "I got a shuttle," he said. "Thinking I ain't so keen on the notion of sharing it close-quarters with you. Seems I recall the last time I did that got me left middle of nowhere scratch my clothes."

"Come on, that was just a joke... I didn't shoot you, did I? Didn't dump you in the garbage." A certain resentment showing itself through the sweetness on that last part.

"Well, y'know, that was Inara more'n it was me. What can I say? Woman holds a grudge. Point of fact, most my crew secretly lookin' to thank you over the naked thing, seeing as how it made of them a mighty entertained bunch. Been a sure tale for brightening those dull afternoons." He stilled the gun in his hand with the barrel pointed at her, held it steady there and watched her steps falter and her back straighten sharply, confusion on her face. "Now, if you'd care to tell me the matter straight?"

" - What?" she asked faintly.

"'Bout whatever deal you and Niska got going," Mal emphasized. "C'mon, YoSaf. Contrary to popular belief, I was not born yesterday. If you're not working with that old bastard, got to be you're trying to scam him, but there ain't no way I'm gonna believe you had no part in planning any of this."

"Mal, you can put the gun away." Her sigh of disgruntlement turned quick to a pout when he didn't comply. "It's very flattering, sure, but be reasonable. You know Niska's not my kind of mark. I don't deal with psy-chos - " She clicked her tongue, sharply defining each of the last two syllables.

"Don't tell me. You don't like working with anyone nuttier'n you are. Damn, woman. You're playin' with fire just 'cause it can burn you. Anyone'd think you hadn't heard what Niska does to folks tick him off."

"I heard what he did to you," she said softly, stepping a mite too far forward for comfort, like she was oblivious to the pistol even when he cocked it. The subject matter unsettled him enough - or maybe it was her propensity to squirm and move that quick little body faster'n the eye could always follow, that got her on the inside of his arm. She ran a hand up under his shirt, provoking an involuntary shudder, and near climbed his body in order to obtain the reach to lick his ear.

"Wo de tian a!" He shoved her off, and wasn't too much for caring when she overbalanced from the force of the shove and ended sprawled in amongst the littered garbage. Her heels scraped the ground as she struggled to get back to her feet.

Her hands brushed down her skirt aggressively. "All right, you piece of crap! I get the no-touching rule. I don't know why you're being so precious all of a sudden. And what'd you do to your gorram head, anyway? That wasn't dear old Adelai."

Mal touched the healing over scar in its slowly regrowing shaven patch, thrown out by the reminder - then glared and settled the gun more aggressively back upon her. "Spot of brain surgery." Waggled the pistol. "Any time you're feeling like being truthsome, now."

She snorted and gestured aggressively with one hand. "You're not going to shoot me, Mal. Truth? You want the truth? 'Cause it's all I keep telling you..." Her forcefully forthright demeanour collapsed of a sudden as she seemed to snag the fact it really wasn't set to work. "Okay," she said frustratedly. "Truth? Happened for the most part just like I told it before. Niska's goons grabbed me to use against you, and that old bastard having a real good time showing me around his rutting torture playroom - "

"You cut a deal," Mal said.

"Hell, yes, I cut a deal. What would you have done? After all, it's not like 'we actually have a relationship'. The man was threatening to stick electrodes to my nipples! So I agreed to give him you to save my ass and buy the time to escape. Of course, I didn't for a moment think you'd be idiot enough to actually turn up. I thought Niska was the only fool under the illusion this was in any way a real marriage!"

"And I only came on the off-chance you really had gotten your damn fool self dumped in the middle of my - " Mal started, and cut himself off. "Gorram it! I don't even know why I came. Far as I'm concerned, Niska can play with his electrodes to his heart's content on whichever damn body part he so pleases his rotten, twisted self." He grimaced; paused and gestured to the uniform. "This was your plan?"

She shrugged. "You're welcome to try come up with one better for next time I have to escape from sadistic psychotics wanting to kidnap me just cause I went and rutting married you!"

"And if that don't got a beautiful poetry all of its own..." He wobbled the gun up and down indicatively as he added, "But you got access to the old bastard. Got the security codes for that fancy electronic wall."

"I picked up a few things that might be useful," she purred. "Why? You looking to avenge yourself on Niska." A laugh like breaking glass, but soft, like it was breaking in the next street. "You're the one calling me crazy? I'll trade. The codes for the shuttle."

He raised his eyebrows. "The codes for the gorram ride."

"No deal. Offer's no use to me if you're dead. And you will be dead, if you really do mean to go in there. Of course, it may take a while. How much did he get before, a day? Hear he's trying for the slow burn lately... managed to rack up a couple counts of a week." She bared her teeth briefly, ran her tongue over them. Taunting. "Think he could break you in a week?"

"I'm thinking you've thought on that thought a mite too long and too fondly," Mal commented, returning her a tight smile. "Say, you wouldn't really be holding a grudge about that whole thing with the trash? A professional girl like you?"

"Right now I'm a whole lot more interested in getting away from here with my nipples intact. Which is what you should be thinking of doing. Seriously, Mal! This guy Niska has a real hard-on for you, and you know how he gets his jollies." She caught his arm - not his gun arm, else he might just have shot her out of reflex. Concern and fear in that grip. "What say we... hop on that shuttle and burn gas away from this rock, hubby?" A faint whine caught in her voice.

Mal studied her a moment, frowning, then delivered a sharp rap to the top of her head with the end of the pistol and pulled it back for the express purpose of shoving it up to her nose so she had a nice view down the gaping hole of the barrel. "You wouldn't be trying to play me again, would you?"

She made a long, infuriated sound through her nose. "I just want to get off this lousy piece of shit planet! Why is that so hard to believe?"

"'Cause your lips are movin'," Mal said. "And I'll still be wanting those codes. No matter which way, those I know you got."

"Okay." She rolled her eyes and actually stamped her foot. Produced a small metal box no bigger'n an inch square out of her white uniform and held it up about a foot short of his face. Added, off his blank expression, "Yes, it's a key. Works on randomised or programmed combinations. I set this one to the combination for the fence. But it won't help you. You wouldn't get past the gate guard. All Niska's people have instructions. They know your face."

Mal frowned, thinking it over. Did seem to throw a wrench into the works, true enough, but that didn't rule out there being some way he could think around it. For example, if he could trust Saffron...

Something odd caught his eye. A smoky wisp on the air between him and the woman. Second he noticed it was the very same he felt its accompaniment of a funny tang on his tongue and an unpleasant burn in his nose and the back of his throat. Noticed too that Saffron was holding her breath. He jerked his head convulsively, expelled the air already in his lungs in a 'huff' and struggled to take no more in while already aware he was wavering on his feet. No sooner had he started to level the gun than she had somehow dodged - and there was something interfering no small measure with his thoughts, 'cause not nobody come move that quick. The pistol clattered as it hit the wall the other side of the alley. He folded and barely had enough control to grab the near wall and keep himself half-upright.

"You lousy gorram whore - !"

She brushed off the shell of the gas pellet she'd concealed between her index and middle fingers, the pieces making soft 'pats' as they landed on the ground. The noise seemed impossibly loud to Mal's senses. He felt disconnected from the world. Lost another few inches to the demands of gravity.

Saffron bent down as his backside hit the alley floor, searched him competently, and patted her open hand a couple times on his cheek, catching his chemically wandering attention. "I'm sorry about this - no, really," she cooed. "I know you're all out to walk in there under your own steam, but... this way seems surer. And I really don't want to aggravate my new business partner. See, he's kind of known for getting a little tetchy if things don't work out his way..."

"You don't want to do this," Mal tried to say. All that came out was a slurred string of unfathomable syllables.

"Poor baby." Saffron's hand trailed over his jaw. "I'll assume that was some sort of appeal to my better nature, but I'm afraid I'm really being paid far too much for anything like that to get a look-in."

Her smile stayed with him as the world submerged in darkness.

As it happened, he was fully out for probably not much more than five minutes, because the next he was aware of was voices in the darkness. Saffron's, simpering: "Oh, please help me, sir. It's my husband. He drinks a little and, well, as you can see... I really tried, but he's just too heavy for me to carry alone..."

A man's voice, "Sure thing, ma'am."

And Saffron again, "Oh, thank you, sir. My hover isn't far."

Mal felt large hands haul him up none-too-gently and he was slung over a shoulder. Saffron said, "This way," and after several bumpy steps where he definitely bounced off the alley wall more than twice the noise level rose dramatically as they turned out onto the street. There, it seemed another body jarred against him every other second.

He couldn't quite pry his eyes open, and sure as hell wasn't in fit shape to be performing coherent speech, not before the gallant fellow had dumped him with a force fit to rattle teeth loose onto a hard, smooth surface - the open back trailer compartment of the hover-unit - and had taken himself off with a last "ma'am" in Saffron's direction, while she thanked him, nauseatingly, about a half-dozen times more than was necessary by anybody's standards.

He was conscious of movement, a further weight alighting the hover, and then the whir of the power getting started and he felt the vehicle rise in a manner that left his stomach back behind at ground level. The stops and starts and general unruly shaking about of the ride through town helped rouse him enough to focus on the thought of himself headed toward a reunion with Adelai Niska that would assuredly get all kinds of unpleasant and messy, and that helped start his consciousness actively struggling to claw the full way out of the threads of the drug.

Some point shortly after the noises of the town had faded and the ride had grown a mite smoother, she turned enough to note his eyes were open - though it didn't do much in the way of improving his situation, since he could barely turn his head an inch to afford himself a view of anything more profound than the wall of the trailer compartment.

"Can you believe," she said, "I really, really am almost sorry about having to do this? Most of my... idiots, you could call them... they don't become the kind of fixture in my life that you have. Why, we could almost say we have something special..." She laughed, throwing back her head, letting the wind of the hover's motion catch her hair and whip it over her shoulders, freed now from that ridiculous white cap.

Mal growled out a phrase in Chinese - best he was able to, anyhow - that set her to laughing all the more. He tried to sit up, but there was no strength in his limbs and he fell back.

"I really wouldn't bother," Saffron confided. "It'll be a good few hours before the drug wears off enough for any dashing heroics... I have to thank you, by the way, for coming. I guess that really does mean you worried about me - at least a little. That was sweet of you."

"This... was the plan?"

She smiled over her shoulder. "Oh, yes. I didn't for a moment expect you to throw yourself on Niska's mercy on my behalf. But the curiosity would have just killed you if you hadn't done anything, right? That or your outdated white knight thing, anyhow. I enjoyed your message, by the way, although dear old Adelai was chomping to drag out the electrodes for a while, admittedly. He thought you'd deal. Sa gua. 'Man of honour', my perfect shapely ass!" Her expression twisted, perplexed, at his inarticulate grunt. "Oh, the uniform? I got bored... They're all just so stuffy. If it's not a riot about choosing new awful wallpaper for the 'plex redecoration it's arguments over the correct technique for a really sustained disembowelling. What's a girl to do? Plus, could always tease you out of cover a bit. I knew you couldn't just take a look and turn tail. Had to get with the talking... You know, Niska really does have no subtlety at all."

"Saf - Yol - whatever the hell your name really is," he said with difficulty, "You do not want to do this. A bit of thievin' and trickery, hell, I done it my own self - no harm, no foul - but what Niska does to people - "

"Are you going to beg?" she asked with apparent interest.

"I'm saying this ain't you. You're better'n that old bastard - "

"Why, thank you, Mal. Whoo! Here we are."

"We are?" He couldn't see a thing beyond the bed of the gorram trailer compartment and the tops of things and rutting sky. Renewing his efforts to break through the drug as they paused at the electronic fence for Saffron to dig out the metal box and activate the codes proved just as futile a task as she'd promised. Then, the security field was already behind them and the guard on the gate in front didn't sound too happy with Saffron, far as Mal could make out. Heard the fellow talk a moment into a communicator before he'd let them through.

"Saffron - Yolanda - damn it!" Mal said. "You can still turn back. Niska won't reward you any - "

"On the contrary," she said tritely. "I think you'll find Niska quite happily rewards those who stand by their deals."

Then the gate clanged shut behind them, and even if she was about to listen to the protests he had left, there wasn't anything either of them could do now, not with a goon hauling her off the front of the hover and a familiar voice several feet distant but closing in as it spoke, saying, "So she has returned to us after all. Good... my dear, we have been wondering why it is you choose to leave again in this manner. It is most uncivil behaviour from a guest, yes?"

"Get off me!" Movement from Saffron, presumably ditching her goon - comprehensively judging from the fleshy impact and groan that came to Mal's ears, where he lay still and silent. But it was a pointless hope, playing to that infinitesimal chance she'd decide to say nothing and try extricate them both from this. "That's a nice welcome party for someone whose only gone and bagged your... junk."

"Is that so?" Sudden excitement in Niska's voice. "Fenro, the hover - "

A shadow blocked out the light, the goon making of himself a big silhouette against the sun, and a deep voice confirmed, "Yep. She's telling the truth." A prod at Mal's shoulder, then a rough hand dragging his chin up for a better view. "It's him all right."

"Told you," Saffron muttered belligerently, somewhere.

Another scrawnier silhouette joined the first. "Oh, my!" chortled Niska gleefully. "Mister Reynolds... Your wife, she does not like you very much, I think. A shame - for this, I am sorry. But for me, ah... for me, this is a good day indeed. A very good day! Yes?"