Even So, Mei Miao

Chapter Two

Cai bu shi: no way (that's not true)

Dian dao: crazy, reversed, mixed up

Ge ge: elder brother

Mei mei: younger sister

Nan kan: embarrassing, unendurable

River took Serenity up through the clouds. She tried to keep the ride smooth, but she reflected as the winds buffeted the ship that Serenity rarely lived up to her name. She could feel the little vibrations caused by…surprise…Mal and Inara arguing. Again.

Mal was walking through the ship as if he actually had to be somewhere. He wasn't running. And Inara wasn't chasing him. She was just walking, also, slightly behind him, trying to talk to him.

Mal turned his head to see she was still there as they entered the kitchen. "I ain't sayin' you shouldn't. The preacher was right about some things, I've reason to know. But I ain't goin' in one of those places. Not ever."

"Mal, I'm not asking you to…." Inara suddenly frowned in confusion as she saw who was sitting in front of her. "…Fess Higgins?"

His eyes widened, and he stood to greet her. "Hello, Inara."

Mal looked interested. "You two know each other?" Then it clicked in his head. "Cai bu shi, don't tell me, he's a client."

"Well, yes, he has been."

"I brought one of your gorram clients onto my boat?"

Jayne, sitting at the end of the table, snickered.

Inara looked flustered, but not displeased to see him. "Fess, I wasn't expecting to see you again."

"Now that I believe. But what I'm wonderin' is whether you were expectin' to see her."

Fess looked extremely awkward. "I didn't know, when I first came on, that she was getting married or that she was even here…I thought this was Jayne's ship. I was looking for him as much as Inara."

"But you were lookin' for Inara. With a particular purpose in mind, I don't doubt."

"I don't intend to answer that, Captain Reynolds."

"Aw, you know what that means. Besides, I saw the look on his face when he heard about you and Inara." Jayne grinned evilly.

"Jayne!" Inara looked like she might slap him.

"But once you knew, you stayed," Mal said.

Fess gulped, then began slowly. "There is more than one meaning to the word 'companion,'" he said.

"Which don't change the fact that she ain't one anymore."

"Mal…."

"Why do you have to go chasin' my Inara? Anyone else would do just as well for you. Any willin' woman, assuming you can find one."

Inara's eyes blazed. "Mal, that was just mean."

"No wait, I mean….See, this is why I don't…." This is why I don't talk about the things that I really care about.

He closed his mouth, and turned around, and left.

"Mal, wait!" Inara ran after him.

Fess turned to Jayne, who was still laughing. "Well, that was nan kan."

Zoë stood and watched as River piloted and Banny played with the dinosaurs. Serenity was out of the atmosphere, and River was laying in a course. Almost ready to fire up the big glowy engine. But then something beeped unexpectedly.

River glanced at the console. "It's a wave, from Monty's ship. Zoë, you want to answer it?"

"Sure." Zoë went to the console and flipped some switches. "Serenity here. Hey, Ray, what's up?"

"Well, Monty's got himself into some trouble with the law back on Kerry, but we're already late for our delivery, so we were wondering if Mal wanted to do an old buddy a favor and pick him up."

"Kerry? That's not too far. We don't have any jobs waitin' on us and we didn't pick up much in the way of passengers. So what happened?"

"Nothin' major, just a bar fight – the usual, you know, old browncoat loyalties on a moon of a core planet. They're all bein' held for a few days before the hearing. He'd rather it didn't get that far; they might figure out who he is an' connect him to some other suspicious activities."

"Sounds like somethin' we could handle. I'll talk to Mal. You gonna be on Persephone for a couple of days?"

"Yeah."

"We'll plan on meetin' you there with Monty. I'll wave you again after I talk to Mal."

Fess wandered the ship, getting a feel for Serenity. He wondered where River was. She was the pilot, wasn't she? He went up to the front of the ship.

Zoe was there, with little Hoban on her hip. They made a comfortable picture, like Banny had always been there. Simon stood by River, hand on her shoulder while she piloted. River's hands moved gracefully over the dials and buttons. Even sitting, she seemed to dance.

"You've been arguing with Kaylee again, haven't you," she was saying to her brother. It wasn't a question.

"A little. I don't understand her. We're so close in some ways, but in other ways…I just can't make my way into her life. It's like a maze. I run into dead ends where I never expected."

Zoe spoke. "Two people can have very different expectations. I remember Wash saying some very similar things about trying to understand me."

"Well at least he got one straight answer out of you – a yes. Whenever I even mention getting married she goes all…sort of uncomfortable. And quiet. That's sort of disturbing. You usually don't get a quiet Kaylee even when she says she isn't talking to you. But when we talk about…well…the physical aspects of our relationship…it seems like she doesn't have any boundaries."

"Well, Kaylee's never been exactly shy about that sort of thing."

"That's very true." Simon smiled. "In a lot of ways."

Now Simon was thinking about Kaylee. Zoe was remembering Wash. And Fess….

River adjusted the course one final time, then got up and ran from the room without a word or a glance.

Simon found River sitting on the stairs by the passenger dorm, looking more overwhelmed than she had in a long time. He came and sat by her and put an arm around her. "River, what's wrong?"

"I know things, I can't help knowing. People's feelings. But I don't know what to do about them. Everyone else's mind is like an open book; it's mine I can't read. It's like trying to read in a dream, and the words slip out from under your eyes. I know what a kiss is like; I have memories, but they're not mine. Some of them are yours. I want to feel it for myself. Is that all this is, or is it something else?"

"Look at you, mei mei. You've grown up."

"No, Simon. Twenty-three is a number. Numbers deceive. They have no attachment to the reality inside of people. I don't know what to do. I'm still remembering how to be a girl, now part of me wants to be a woman – the foundations aren't in place. It's like the tall man said, your legs should be long enough to reach the ground. Well what if they aren't?"

"You'll be fine. You'll do fine. You were always ahead of everyone else – you always knew more about my love life than I did. Remember how I used to tease you and say you had a third eye?" Simon smiled. Every day she was more like the bright little sister he remembered.

River shook her head. "She's still broken – the girl you knew. I come out different, rebuilt. The memories come together like paint cracking in reverse, all of them – of you, ge ge, of codes and games, of home and school….Of things from Serenity before Miranda that were lost in the chaos or misunderstood; that cracked and fragmented and got put back together wrong – plugged into the wrong places, positive to the negative contact and output to the input feed – putting it back together it's ugly and broken. Pieces missing. I'm not a girl who's lived twenty-three whole years. And I still need you, ge ge."

"Tell me, mei mei. Tell me what it's like." Simon stroked River's hair the way he always did, the way that seemed to say poor tortured head, let me make it better.

"I remember things I've done – picked up guns and killed people like flipping a light switch in my head, no more meaning to it. Living was like painting on a canvas torn to pieces. Put the pieces back together and there's an ugly piece in my life. The wiring was all wrong – gun is an object, object is a branch. Dian dao. Gun is a symbol of death, and also protection. Remember that and I can bear it.

"Poor Kaylee. Frightened before and frightened after. I felt it. She told me in jest and I told her in truth. No power in the 'verse can stop me. Ugly to see the gun meant no more than the apple. Now I can eat the apple and protect with the gun and Kaylee doesn't have to be afraid. And I don't worry any more about what I might have done, and didn't. But there are burnt, blackened places that can't be fixed. Book. I hurt him. I tore him up, ge ge, and it can't be fixed. Not now."

"I know, mei mei. That leaves a hole in all of us."

She cried, and Simon held her.