Even So, Mei Miao

Chapter Three

Ai ya! Dui bu qi: holy crap! Pardon me

Go se: shit

Ke pa: terrible, frightening

Kuang zhe de: crazy, idiotic

Tian xiao de: name of all that's sacred

Mal explained the situation to his crew as they sat around the kitchen table.

"I might be able to help here," said Fess. "Local law enforcement is different all over, but there's a basic principle – make the person in charge believe that what you want is also to their advantage." He looked at the skeptical expressions of those around him. "Well, at worst it could help provide a distraction for whatever you were planning on doing."

"All right," said Mal. "Here's the plan. Jayne and Fess, you take the shuttle, walk in the front door of the station and provide some kind of distraction. If words aren't enough I'm sure Jayne can think of something. Zoe and I will sneak in the back way and spring Monty. He'll recognize us both, know what's going on if things need to happen fast, with no explanations. We'll signal you when we're done and you can get out yourselves."

What followed was fun and action-packed. Jayne was amazed to hear the initially quiet Fess yelling and gesturing at the sheriff, explaining that his uncle was one of those taken into custody and Fess was sure he wasn't involved, and mentioning powerful friends of his family.

Mal and Zoe took the hover-thingy by a slightly different route to arrive in back of the building just after the tirade got going. Unfortunately the entire group was being kept in one room and the only reason they weren't killing each other was that most of them were already injured or had spent most of the time since the brawl sleeping off a diverse array of headaches. They got Monty out and onto the mule, but as a result there was a mob of grumpy, bruised unification supporters running after them.

This would have been fine; the mule could outrun them with no problem, loaded with only three people, even if one of them was Monty. But some of them were that exact wrong combination of vengeful, stupid and living right in the neighborhood that they went home to get horses and guns and chase after.

They got to Serenity just before these men caught up. Kaylee had the door open for them. They were jumping off the hoverthingy when one of the stupid men fired a shot. In that moment the fun factor of the whole mission took a nosedive.

A child's shriek split the air, followed by Kaylee's yell. "Oh…oh, Banny….Simon! Simon, come quick!"

Mal turned and saw what had happened. His face went hard. "Tian xiao de." Almost without looking he shot down the man who had fired. He fell off his horse, dead. The rest ran.

Zoe's voice was clipped and quiet. "Banny, honey. Listen to me. You're gonna be all right." She stroked her son's head as he lay on the deck.

The boy had gone pale; his usually rosy tan face was frighteningly gray. The right leg of his pants below the knee was rapidly turning dark with blood.

Simon went pale too when he saw that it was Banny who had been hurt…partly because of the knowledge of what Zoe could do to him if things went wrong at all. But he took in the scene, and he began doing his job.

Banny smiled slightly groggily up at his mother, who was holding his hand as Simon finished putting on the bandage.

"How you feeling, baby?"

"Not a baby," said Banny with a scowl.

"You just go on thinkin' that, honey. Now how's your leg?"

"It huwrts a little. An' my head feels funny."

"That's fine," the doctor said. "Tell me if it hurts more than a little and I'll give you more painkiller, but it would be better not to put any more into your system." He turned to Zoe.

"He's very lucky…the bullet went through cleanly, and nothing's broken. He's lost a significant amount of blood for that little body, so he's weak right now, but he'll recover quickly. In fact, Banny should be up wandering into places he shouldn't be again in a couple of days."

Zoe hugged Simon. There was no warning. The doctor was not entirely comfortable with this, especially since her grip was threatening to suffocate him. But he could feel the relief flow through her, one of the intense emotions that she hardly ever let show.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Then she broke her grip and turned away, back to her son. Her stance made it clear that the display was over and that he was no longer wanted here. It was as if it had never happened, as if the doctor wasn't even there. He left Zoe alone with her son.

Once Simon came and told Mal the kid would be OK, the captain could focus on the more pleasant aspects of this job.

"Hey, Monty! Your soup catcher! It's back!"

"Yeah, it is. Took a lot of trouble but I learned my lesson. Never trust a woman."

"Uh, Monty, there's somethin' I'm gonna have to tell you."

"Yeah, Mal?"

"Besides the fact that my second in command, pilot and engineer are all women."

"Well, crew don't count. Just don't let 'em in your bed."

"I'm gettin' married."

There was a pause, and then a huge belly laugh. "Ah, Mal, y'almost had me there for a second."

"Uh, no, Monty, I'm serious."

"What? Y'can't be!" Monty's huge hairy face came right up close to Mal's. This'll make anyone a bit nervous. But Mal held his gaze. "Aw, no, I thought you'd learned your lesson, too!"

"Yeah, I keep thinkin' I must be crazy, but I can't help myself. I love her, Monty."

"Yeh can't do this, Mal. They're all treacherous snakes like Bridget, damn her!"

Kaylee saw that things were turning sour. "Hey folks, calm down. Come on."

But they ignored her. "My Inara ain't no Saffron! Or whatever her name was. And I won't let you insult her!"

"Looks like I'm going to have to knock some sense into you, Mal!"

BAM!

Mal went down in one punch.

Kaylee ran to kneel by his side. "Cap'n! You all right?"

Zoë came up the stairs from the infirmary, carrying Banny. "Monty! What do you damn well think you're doing?"

Inara emerged from her shuttle and looked down at the captain, who was now groggily shaking his head. "What idiotic thing has Mal been doing now?"

"Fighting with Monty, looks like," said Zoë.

"Cap'n got huwrt too?" Banny asked.

"Yeah, honey. 'Cause he was being an idiot."

"Which one of you," said Monty, "did this?" He pointed down at Mal.

"I think you did that," said Kaylee.

"Which one of you womenfolk seduced him into marryin' you?"

Inara came down the stairs, glaring at Monty. "If I had wanted to seduce him, I could have. But I didn't, all right? No matter how hard I tried to get him to leave me alone, he wouldn't. He didn't fall for my companion act. He fell for me."

Mal looked up at her. "'Nara, much as I love you, I gotta stop defendin' your honor. It hurts."

Monty shook his head. "Kuang zhe de."

Zoë said, "Monty, cool down. Inara's been part of our crew for years. 'Fact, if not for her, your Bridget would have taken off with one of our biggest payoffs."

Mal was sitting up now, and he looked at Inara, who was now kneeling beside him opposite Kaylee. He saw the concern mixed with annoyance in her eyes.

"See, I got punched, for standin' up for her, an' she's mad at me. That's pure Inara, an' no lie." He looked at Monty again. "Know what? Nothing you say is gonna stop me from believing Inara. And it startled me to no end when she said she'd be mine and mine only, but if she said it I don't doubt that it's true."

Kaylee was in her hammock, staring at her boots.

Jayne walked in. "Hey Kaylee, you got any o' that stuff you make in the engine?"

"Yeah, I might," she said. "What's the occasion?"

He avoided her gaze. "Just got back and heard what happened to the kid," said Jayne. "It's makin' me think, an' it ain't pleasant, an' I need somethin' to make it stop."

Anyone else would have teased Jayne for saying something like that, but not Kaylee. She just said, "Yeah, I know what you mean," and reached a cup and a bottle out of a secret nook.

He poured himself a generous amount, threw it down, and then said, "Well, if there ain't another cup hidden back there, you c'n use this one too. This stuf'll kill anything."

Kaylee smiled and thanked him, but she brought another cup out of hiding, and poured herself some.

"Good," said Jayne. "I din't come here plannin' on drinkin' alone."

She knew he had come here to talk out what was bothering him, but he wouldn't until he had a few more, so they lapsed into silence. Kaylee went back to staring at her boots, but she was glad he was there. Being alone wasn't so good for her right now either, though part of her wanted to be. The good thing about Jayne was that he wouldn't try to cheer her up.

"Wish I'd been there. Got no action at all. Jus' got t' ride in th' shuttle an' listen to an argument."

"I saw it, y'know. Just a baby, but he was strong, like his mama. Scared me more than it did him. Go se, Jayne, it scared me."

"Shouldn' have happened. No reason for it."

"Some people can be awful mean, 'specially when they've drunk a bit too much."

"Golramit, there's such a thing as goin' too far. An' I don't do anythin' when 'm drunk I wouldn't do cold sober. Don' change who y'are."

"Yeah, well, ye're a nice drunk. 'Fact, I'd say ye're nicer when yer drunk. Y'ferget t'be all mean an' blockheaded." Kaylee smiled her sleepy-eyed smile at Jayne. "Th' doc's cert'nly more fun drunk, when you c'n get 'im to drink. Not t'day – he has a patient t'see to. That one time, tho, in that town with the statchew of you, got 'im to drink enough he almost talked normal."

"Th' doc can be annoyin' as hell, but we need 'im. Day like today…kid could've died. If it'd been worse…ain't none of us that'd know what t'do." Jayne's hand made a fist. "Golramit, I've seen hun'reds of people die, killed most of'em myself. It mos'ly don't bother me. Why now? The kid's all right…."

"You're dif'rnt, since Banny's born. I seen the way you look at 'im. First you lookt kinda scared, like th'world w's fallin' out from under yeh. Like Banny was to tiny to be real. But lately it's bin more like…determined. Like ye've got a mission."

"Zoe…she's the best fighter on this boat. I've got my own skills, and Mal's just insane, but Zoe's the strongest. My own momma don't know how close I come to dyin', what I do out here. An' I ain't tellin' her. There ain't many could do what Zoe does, raisin' a kid out here." Jayne held the empty bottle over his cup, the last drops falling. "That's the hardest thing in the 'verse – carin'. Really carin' about somethin' that could be gone in an instant. Bang. Gone." He threw the bottle aside violently.

Plastic hitting metal went clunk.

"But I can't help carin' 'bout the kid."

Banny sat on River's lap as she watched over the controls.

"I wonder," said River. "Do you think you've been alive forever?"

"I w's nevur not…alive."

"Yes, but was there a time when you didn't be yet?"

Banny's face scrunched in intense thought. "I don't wermember."

"Neither do I. I mean there was a time before I knew you, and a time when I knew Mother Zoe and there was nobody inside her, and then one day you were there and I thought maybe you had always been there and I couldn't tell."

"You c'd tell it was me?"

"Yes."

"Was I youw frend even when I was inside Mommy?"

"Yep. We've always been friends."

Banny thought for a minute. "That means I've always been."

River smiled. "You know, I think you're right."

Zoe came up the stairs. "Hey Banny. Thanks for lookin' after him, River."

"Any time," she said, and smiled, one of her new real smiles that were more and more common. She waved goodbye to Banny as they retreated down the stairs.

River spoke to Fess without waiting for a greeting. "You sneak, like me. Waiting in corners to hear, more important than being heard. That'll annoy Mal after a while…but I'll always hear you."

Fess stepped out from the corridor. "Why did you run away before?"

She looked at him and then away, out at the stars again. "The popular theory is that I'm not quite right in the head."

"I'm sure that's not true. You seem sane enough to me."

She gave him a Look. It was a searching look and a you're-missing-the-point look and it said a lot of things without really having much expression to it. "Do I?" she asked.

"Well, you are beginning to be creepy."

"I'm getting better," River said. "I'm not dangerous anymore. Not to people with acceptable intentions."

"Acceptable intentions?"

"Nobody's intentions are pure. No one I've ever read. Except Banny."

"So have you been this way your whole life? A reader? And…a bit strange?"

"No." She shook her head. "It could have just been a gift. Gifted. Like Simon. He knows more than he admits; the right medicine to give, the words to say, how to help someone hurt or panicked…. Just a gift. We could have lived a normal life. If they had just left me alone."

"Who?"

"You know I'm wanted? By the Alliance? All the bulletins, River Tam, dead or alive? You've seen them."

"That's you? But you don't look anything like that…you're beautiful."

"Ugly picture of an ugly…weapon. In a lot of ways the girl in the picture isn't me. Not even a person. They took me apart and put me together so I worked differently, took instructions, fought without feeling and felt without understanding. 'No one can shoot like that that's a person.' Kaylee said that once. She was right."

"Ke pa."

"But I'm putting my mind back together. Simon lost everything to get me away from them, and he's helped more than he knows."

They both looked at the stars.

"Compared to that my life sounds so dull. But you sound like you would love to have a dull day."

"Sometimes I would. I remember before the Institute, before the experiments, everything seemed so slow. Simple and dull and everyday. I wanted so badly to experience something else. Now I would love just to spend a day going to classes and talking to friends and being normal. Safe. Not worrying. I can't ever go back to that. But now Serenity is home."

Fess sighed. "Am I wrong to want the same thing? To get away from the way things have been for as long as I can remember? Am I weak for running away from the challenges that I did have there?"

"You just realized that you've never had to be strong. How can a man know he is a man without a battle to fight?"

"Today was exciting," he said. "I never knew I could be that person that I was today. Somehow I was so sure of myself and what I needed to say. Somehow…today changed me more than anything else that's happened to me."

"Maybe because it didn't just happen to you. You made it happen."

Fess looked at River. She seemed to know him better than he knew himself, and they had only talked twice. And she was beautiful.

"You want to kiss me." Like so many of the things she said, it could have been a question and wasn't.

"Would you like me to?"

She thought. "The idea is worth experimenting with." Then she laughed. "Words make funny thoughts and ripples in your brain."

She stood up and moved towards him, only a little hesitantly.

A moment later Simon came up the steps. "River?" he was calling. Then he saw them. "Ai ya! Dui bu qi." He went away muttering, "the longer I spend on this ship the smaller it gets."