This story was first published elsewhereand was my first ever fanfic. Now it has been beta read and over hauled.
Additions and changes have been made to my beta's suggestions and to fit the rating so any remaining mistakes are mine. I struggle with spelling and grammer so I've done my best and put my faith in spell check.
The whole story is nine chapters, some have not yet been beta read and overhauled and will apear later.
The whole story is rated M for violence and language.
I loved Westerns when I was a kid, this one owes a chunk of its plot to a favorite.
In Sunshine and in Shadow
It was Unification day.
As per usual Mal had insisted that they find an Alliance friendly bar, but the day wasn't going to the usual pattern. It was a grim bar on a grim dustbowl moon called St Catherine. It had a mostly male clientel, generally going from sober to drunk with the minimum fuss in between.
Maybe Inara's presence was exercising a restraining affect, or maybe Alliance supporters were feeling a little less fired up post Miranda, but it was quiet, no toasts, and no real aggressive drunks. There were drunk drunks, miserable drunks, mellow drunks and the odd happy drunk, all of them keeping out of Mal's way. In fact they were having a 'nice' time.
Jayne had looked around the bar and from a limited selection found himself some female company; she was hanging tipsily of his shoulder while he was playing pool.
Kaylee and Simon had stayed for one drink then disappeared who knows where.
River had stayed on the ship, muttering something like "too noisy." Mal thought that was strange because the bar had a tomb like quality. Maybe because none of the patrons looked like they were living much.
Inara was watching the world go by, seeming at her ease in her rickety bar chair. Her hair was loose, not a jewel or a clip to be seen, her dress flowing like shadowy river water to the floor, all shades of blue.
Even her presence didn't seem to be raising anyone's blood pressure.
Inara and Mal talked, conversation floating around going no where, but pleasantly, their ego's and tempers taking a day off.
Mal was almost enjoying himself. He could have made a fight happen but he preferred the first physically aggressive move to come from someone else and no one was playing, so he just let it go. The one thing niggling away at him and taking the edge of his pleasure was Zoë.
She'd been drinking. Zoë had a hard head though she wasn't really a drinker, however she had been sinking them steadily and by now, she should have been drunk, but she wasn't.
What she was, was so full of tension it was like a twanging wire. Inara was feeling it too; Mal being so tightly attuned to every nuance of Inara's body language he could see it like she had an aura, waves of frustrated sympathy hitting the brick wall that was Zoë these days.
Zoë was spoiling for a fight, anything from an argument to a killing. She hadn't tried to dissuade Mal one bit from the annual trip to an Alliance bar, and the weights and the punch bag had been taking some serious punishment.
Well the reason was obvious, one dead husband and the kind of widow who wouldn't weep or wail and who could beat the innards out of most men living was an explosive combination. The trouble was Mal didn't know what to do about it.
The bar door opened and Zoë's head shot round to inspect the new comers, checking, or Mal guessed, hoping for trouble.
Mal checked the door as well, though a little more subtley. A great grin spread across his face.
"Owain Thomas, where the hell you bin?"
Before Mal could get up, his hand and arm had been griped and pumped by the man at the head of the group of four new arrivals. Owain Thomas was not too tall but he was lean and whipcord fast. He had a reputation as a gun hand and no small talent at leading men. He and Mal had never served together but they'd come across each other shortly after Serenity Valley. They had worked a couple of jobs that had given Mal some of the cashy money to buy his ship.
They both worked in the never-world between legal and illegal commerce, Owain almost exclusively as a gun for hire and bodyguard. He was, in addition, aggressively proud of his Welsh heritage. He had a habit of talking Welsh when, in Mal's opinion, he wanted to be irritating.
While gripping onto Mal, Owain had taken stock of the occupants of the table, he spotted Jayne as part of the group because Jayne had stopped his game of pool and was standing watchful. His eyes widened slightly at Inara and then he spotted Zoë.
He hoicked Zoë out of her chair and gave her a bear hug. Zoë stood there rigid. Mal and Inara held their breath as Owain released Zoë and looked up into her face with a cheeky grin.
"Zoë girl, it's been too long, now where...?"
Mal butted in at high speed. "Owain you stop bothering my first mate and get your sorry ass up to the bar with me." He slapped Owain on the back, adding a little push to get him moving.
Owain was sharp enough to get the hint; once the drinks had arrived he propped himself up on the bar, making no move to go back to the table.
"Ok ffrind, heb os nac oni bai, you going to tell me what's wrong with Zoë? normally she hits me when I grab her, this time she stood there like a statue."
"Wash's dead."
"Cachu! Daria! How long?"
"Bout a month."
Owain took a drink, "It ain't like a friend dying in the war, you almost got used to that and we were all in the same boat." Owain rubbed a stubbly chin, "What the hell do I say?"
"Now I've just conjured a pretty thought, y'all could try hugging her again. If you let Zoe beat you up a mite I promise you the best medical care."
"I ain't got such a death wish." Replied Owain, grimly.
"It might be best if you don't say anything." Both men jumped as Inara drifted softly up behind them and spoke low. "I've tried, I live in perpetual fear of what River might say but she hasn't said anything yet and Kaylee's scared to. There are some people who ought to try but don't." Inara turned a brittle smile on Mal.
Mal had opened his mouth to protest when a distraction was caused by the opening of the bar door. As usual most of the patrons checked the new comer for trouble.
It was a woman, she looked un-remarkable and most eyes returned to their drinks. Mal and Owain's didn't, perhaps because they were the closest to the door and could see more clearly, perhaps because they were almost sober, or perhaps because they both had built in trouble sensors that were yelling at them to be alert. Owain in particular stiffened.
"I've seen her about, seems she's looking for something or someone." He muttered to Mal.
She wore a round hat with ornate studs round the rim, it was an ugly hat. As a result you couldn't see much of her face. Her clothes were well worn, serviceable but plain as if she had no desire to attract attention; this made her choice to wear the hat confusing.
All patrons were required to check their weapons at the door, but this woman didn't even have a holster.
They watched the hat turn slowly as the woman checked out the room. She must have seen what she wanted because she started to move with a purpose.
Owain's companions, three fairly un-prepossessing bravo's had taken a table a few steps from the one where Zoë was still sitting.
The hat and its wearer stopped in front of the table.
"Harry Bigelow?"
All three men looked up, one nodded.
The woman took off the hat; she had dark hair scraped back in a knot at her neck.
Zoë watched, her own trouble sensor shrieking.
The woman threw the hat on the table.
"D'ya remember that hat?"
Harry Bigelow picked it up puzzled; he turned it round in his hands, then something clicked in his face and he looked up at the woman, his expression somewhere between wariness and anger.
"Maybe I do girl, what's it to you?"
"The man who wore that hat raised me and my brother when our parents died. You shot him. You and two friends."
"I done shot a lot of people girl; the old fart who wore that hat was a cheat."
"No, he was good is all, he had no need to cheat. You and your friends were bad losers." The woman stepped more into the light. Mal could see some shape and expression to her face and it was set and grim.
"He was kind of an old man. Never carried a gun, was no threat to you or anyone else."
Bigelow snorted. "So what ya gonna do girl?"
"Took me close on eight months, but I caught up with your two buddies; 'spect you'll notice I'm still standing." She grinned with not a speck of humour.
"Now I've found you."
"You callin' me out?" Spluttered Harry.
The woman took the hat out of Harry's slack hands, set it with care on her head, nodded to Harry and walked outside.
There was something of an exodus to the yard outside the bar. The woman was standing quietly waiting.
Bigelow and his buddies stepped out together buckling on their guns.
"You two drop your weapons." It was unmistakably an order, barked out by Owain and it was obeyed.
"Mr Thomas, this girl's calling me out." whined Harry, appealing to a higher authority.
"An' I'm going to let that happen Bigelow. I'm a might interested to see how she is gonna do this, look you, she has no gun. Sides," he said, giving his man a thoughtful look. "It shouldn't have taken three of you to kill one old man."
Harry looked at the girl, she just stood, hands loosely at her sides.
"Being female ain't gonna hold me back girl. Nee TZAO ss-MA?"
She just stood.
"Damn." Harry looked around a moment, he was being honest when he said that her sex wouldn't hold his hand, but he was un-nerved, she was just standing there with no sign of a weapon."
"Aw shit." He swore and went for his gun.
Before he got his it half way clear of the holster there was a knife in his neck. Inara turned away a hand to her mouth. Harry clutched his throat, trying to hold his sorry life in. It took what seemed an eternity for him to lie still. No one made any move to help him.
Owain and Mal looked down dispassionately at the corpse.
"You think he's dead now?" Asked Owain.
Mal poked the body with a toe.
"I reckon, course I could get my ships Doctor to be sure."
Owain shot Mal a quizzical look, "You got a ships Doctor? Daria! You gone up in the world?"
The woman walked over as calm as ever and pulled the knife free with a gristly sound. There was movement from Harry's two buddies and Owain and Mal spotted them going for their guns.
The first bravo had his gun shot out of his hand by Zoë, which Mal found remarkable considering the amount of whiskey she'd sunk. But then, maybe she had aimed for his head. The fellow looked up to find himself covered by both Zoë and Mal. Owain had made no attempt to draw his weapon, just gave him a look. He and his friend backed down.
"You want to come to dinner Owain?" Said Mal out of the corner of his mouth.
"I'll be there ffrind, I'll just take my boy's inside and get them a drink and we'll all be happy again."
Once Owain had seen his men inside, Mal and Zoe relaxed. The bar owner, a man with a weary face and attitude and one of his staff appeared and carted away the corpse without fuss.
The woman watched the corpse go, calmly wiping off her knife with a cloth. She returned it to its sheath located inside her shirt and at the back of her collar.
"Y'all might need to get off this rock fairly quick like." Observed Mal.
"Ain't that the truth?" Remarked Zoë dryly.
The Woman shrugged, she looked kind of saggy, as if something that had been holding her up had gone. "Done what I set out to do, question is what now?"
"If you got the coin, I got a ship."
The Woman looked at him hard. Mal could feel her eyes drilling him from under the rim of her silly hat.
"I got some coin."
"Then we can maybe do a deal," Mal stuck out a hand "So, who in the gorram hell are you?"
Welsh Translations#
Ffrind- Friend
Heb os nac oni bai- No ifs or buts
Daria – Damn
Cachu – Bullshit
Chinese translations
Nee TZAO ss-MA?" – You want bullit?