Castle awoke the next morning early, making sure he has time to sort a few things out before the others wake up.
He travels down the long flight of stairs and is greeted at the bottom by the smell of breakfast wafting through the kitchen doors. He follows the smell into the kitchen to see who was up this early.
He was surprised to see Petaline in there, "Good morning Petaline." He greets, still unsure of how to act being back in the future. Does he revert to his old ways of being angry, crude, and illiterate sounding? He really does enjoy the new him though. He is happy a feeling he had lost long ago in the battle of Serenity. He enjoys big words and spinning tails to make others happy. It's now become a part of him. Honestly, he doesn't know if he can give that up.
"Captain Reynolds?" Petaline calls breaking him out of his thoughts.
"Yes, Petaline? Sorry I seem to have been caught up in my thoughts. What did you say?"
"I asked what your intentions for being here are."
"Oh right, well I need to find a way to get in touch with my crew. Is there any way you can hail them?" he asks. As soon as he finishes the question he notes his mistake, they haven't been his crew in a very long time.
"Of course, I can have one of the girls send out a communication to them." She offers with a smile.
"Thank you, if that could be done as soon as possible I would be really thankful." Petaline nods her head in agreement.
She slips back into shuffling about the kitchen making food while Castle fades into the background before slipping away. He creeps back upstairs making sure not to awake the others. He quietly opens the door to the room he was staying in and all heads whip toward him. Apparently they were all up and holding a pow wow without him.
Castle opens his mouth to once again apologize but is quickly cut off by the sound of someone yelling his name. He turns around to be met by little Jonah.
"Captain Reynolds, your friends are here. They came as soon as they heard."
"Wow, they got here fast. Thank you Jonah."
Castle runs a shaky hand through his hair. He was not expecting this to happen so fast. He was suppose to have more time, more time to think and collect his thoughts. More time before his new family and his old family became one. With one last shaky breathe he looks back on his new family and says, "If you want to come you are more than welcome to, or you can stay here until we leave this planet to find a way back."
He turns to leave assuming no one would follow, "Rick wait," Kate calls out. He turns back around slowly, "We want to come with you. We discussed it."
"Yea bro, you might of gotten us into this mess but we are sticking together till the end." Esposito adds.
Lanie nods in agreement. Alexis still has her eyes cast downward but nods her head in agreement while clutching Martha's hand. Martha offers up Castle a reassuring smile before he leads them outside.
They make it outside just in time to see the ship landing. "Dios mío." Esposito says.
"Oh my god, Castle is that your so called boat?" Kate asks. Castle nods while bouncing on the balls of his feet attempting to get rid of his nervous energy.
As the airlock opened Castle became still and quiet, Kate notices this and reaches her hand out to show her support. Castle immediately takes it and gives her a smile.
As soon as his crew came into view he smiled. As they were walking out talking amongst each other Kaylee froze, her eyes grew wide as she spots him. And in the blink of an eye she's in his arms.
"Hey little Kaylee." Castle says softly. She looks up at him with those big eyes all watery.
"It really is you captain! Oh I knew it! Jayne he didn't but I did! I knew they ain't lyin about you bein back!"
Zoe was the next one to greet him, "Well all be, Captain Malcolm Reynolds back from the dead. Come back to cause more problems?" Kate, Alexis, Lanie, and Javier all look upon worried that this woman might not like Castle.
To their surprise Castle walks closer to her, with Kaylee hot on his heels, and hugs the woman.
He whispers softly in her ear, "I missed you Zoe." She doesn't let go of him only wraps her arms around tighter.
Finally she pulls away and the moment of raw emotion is gone. The fierce soldier he knows is back. "good to have you back sir." She says.
River comes to stand right in front of him, " I told them you were back. They didn't believe me. You would think they would learn by now that I am right."
Castle laughs, "It's good to see you little Albatross."
"You're different." She states firmly, "I like it." And with that she turns and walks back to the ship. Castle just laughs like he normally does when they have their little talks.
Zoe turns and addresses him, "Sir, Jayne is still sleeping. You know how he is. Inara is a day out. We been short handed since you left. Simon is with Inara picking up medical supplies."
"Simon and Inara working together. Well I'll be damned. That's the oddest two to work together. On the other hand its good I brought along a few friends to help."
"Well c'mon Mal bring your friends up to the kitchen so we ain't standin outside all day burnin." Zoe says.
They all follow the woman through the ship. They are lead into a small sized room that seems to be the kitchen and dining room all in one.
Once in the dinning hall Zoe took a look at everyone Mal had brought with him. "Mrs. R!" she exclaims.
"Hello Zoe dear." She says.
"Martha! You're from the future too?" Kate exclaims.
"Yes dear, I am." Kate just sits there looking shell shocked. For some reason when Castle was panicking she didn't think about how Martha was his mother.
"Bro, what is going on? How the hell are you from the future?"
Castle laughs at his blunt questions, "Well do you want the long story or the condensed story."
"For god's sake just tell us already Castle!" Lanie says.
"His name ain't Castle, it's Mal. Ain't that right Capn'?" Kaylee says.
"Well, in the past I changed my name to Richard Castle." Castle tells Kaylee. "Ok, back to the story. This group called the Alliance sent me back in time, they tried me for treason because I revealed government secrets. My punishment was to send me back in time to the place where no one comes back from."
"Well, apparently you can come back from it." Kate jokes. Castle returns a smile thanking her for relieving some of the tension.
"What government secrets did you expose? They must have been really heavy for you to be punished so badly." Lanie says.
"Well, the Alliance was feeding a chemical called Pax to a planet called Miranda. Now, the Pazx was intended to make the population more compliant. Sadly, it worked to well. Millions of people became so flaccid they gave up working, eating, and living altogether. They just eventually gave up breathing."
"'Cept it didn't work on everyone." Zoe includes.
"Approximately 1% of the population had the reverse reaction; they became brutally sadistic and uncontainable."
"We call 'em Reavers." Zoe says.
"The Reavers, if you ever run into them you better shoot yourself, it's a whole hell of a lot better than what they will do to you. They are known to eat their victims, while they are still alive among less mentionable things." Castle says before glancing at Alexis who looked sick.
"Oh god." Kate whispers, she presses a shaky hand to her mouth. Esposito and Lanie are holding hands practically sitting on top of each other for support.
"Reaver rates are down. Alliance started killin'em off when people found out them reavers used ta be citizens like the lots of 'em."
"Well I'll be damned."
"yes, sir. The browncoats are rallyin up again. Alliance is losin control. Word is an uprisin is in the future." Zoe says with a smile, Castle's eyes get big and sparkly at the talk of uprising against the alliance.
"Castle, who's the alliance?" Esposito asks.
"the alliance is the central government. They control the center of the system better known as the core planets. Now, the farther out you travel the weaker their control over the planets becomes."
"Does the alliance ever try to take over the outer planets?" Kate asks.
"yes, that's what lead to the first uprising. The outer planets didn't take that to well so they banded together and became the brown coats."
"I take it the uprising didn't go so well?" Espo asks.
"No, the Alliance over powered us, they had superior weaponry and more men." Castle responds.
"We gave em our gorram best sir."
"That we did Zoe, that we did."
"you were in the war?" Esposito asks.
"Yes, I was a member of the 57th Overlanders. The one battle that will forever be with me, the battle I don't think I ever truly got out of was the Battle of Serenity. It lasted for 7 weeks, those were 7 weeks of pure hell. At the time I was only a Sergeant, but due to the losses that we experienced every minute I was put in charge of over 2000 men and women."
"Bro-" Esposito says, conveying his shock and understaning, he knows due to his time in war that for someone who is only a sergeant to be in charge of anything meant there were many-many losses.
"Those who came out of that valley lost something, a part of us we will never get back. I personally lost any faith I had, and I lost so much more." Castle says angrily. Zoe puts a reassuring hand on his arm.
"Mal and I were the only surviving member of our unit. Out of the thousands of people who went into war, only 150 of us came out alive. So many more of us could have lived, they could have had a fighting chance if those Jing Chang Mei Yong De Go Neong Yung Duh had given us anything. We wre left alone in those trenches for a week, we had no supplies and they didn't give us no medical treatment while them alliance folk were readin over our surrender."
Everyone sits there in shock, all surprised that Castle- hell anyone- had gone through something like that.
Alexis has tears in her eyes and she rushes over to her dad. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for how mean I've been. I'm sorry this had to happen to you." she says as she crys into his shoulder. He just holds on to her for dear life, glad she finally is letting him in again.
"Shhh, it's ok pumpkin. I'm sorry too."
He continues to stroke her back as she crys. Her sobs subside and she quickly wipes her eyes, embarrassed that she just sobbed in front of everyone.
"Sir?" Zoe says, somehow asking a question with one word.
"Zoe, River, Kaylee I would like you to meet my daughter Alexis." Alexis gives them a smile.
Zoe lets out a loud laugh, "Good one sir. For a minute you almost had me."
"I'm not kidding Zoe, this is my daughter."
Zoe looks stunned, "Where's her mom?" Kaylee asks.
"she's back on earth. Her and I are divorced."
"You got married again? Ha, I thought you swore off marriage Mal." Zoe says laughing.
"Why would you swear off marriage Dad?" Alexis asks.
"Yea Rick, let's hear why you swore off marriage."
"Can I tell the story Captain? Can i?" Kaylee asks excited. Castle nods and lets her have her fun.
"So we were on this planet and the Capn' here got drunk and ended up married to this woman with out even realizing it! Her name was Saffron, she seduced Capn' after hidin out on the ship. She tried to kill us all but Capn' wouldn't have it." Kaylee says.
Castle looks over and sees his mother grinning wildly, "Don't you dare mother." He says.
"it was your mistake for telling me this story-" she says before continuing, "not only did this woman attempt to kill them all but some while later he works with her again!" She proceeds to finish the story and everyone is laughing whole heartedly when they hear about Castle ending up stark naked in the middle of the dessert.
Castle looks around, he knows he will have to get down to business soon. But for now, he enjoys the moment and lets everyone cool off before finding a way back home.