'Nara comes up towards time for her shift. She stopped wearin' so much of her Companionin' clothes, sayin' she done thrown her lot in with us, and maybe she'll be the first freelance Companion, settle down someplace nice if we make landfall for more'n a month and she decides she's sick o'the travel. She ain't gotten sick yet, tho', and it's nice to have three shifts o'people flyin' this bird, not jus' me and River.
"You are more at ease since Miranda," she says, slidin' into her chair.
"What is it with women on this boat?" I ask, mostly jokin'. "Seems like every conversation starts in the middle. Not with a "Captain," or "Hello, Mal," or even a "Hey, you." Just straight int' the declarations."
She smiles, that 'Nara smile that's always mysterious. The one that makes you think she knows what you're thinkin', though sometimes clearly she don't. "Perhaps we just find those social formalities unnecessary, since you are a straightforward man."
I snort. "Hardly that. Now you're just butterin' me up. What, you want a stop-off so's we can pick up on some real clothes for you so's you can get outta Kaylee's so much?"
She laughs. "No, but that would be nice. Some fresh vegetables as well." It's easier, somehow, since Miranda. Not as I didn't know she couldn't fight, you gotta be tough in your own way to be a Companion, but she's more part of the crew and some of that whatever it was just evaporated, somehow. Just about when I come back an' seen all them dead Reavers River done took down. Love at mass death and all that.
"Well," I say, thinkin'. "Don' need a job right now quite so much but it'd be nice to line one up if we can. I'll check on as I can where there ain't no Alliance been around lately, see if there's some buzz out there'n the Cortex about jus' how persona non grata I am."
"River mentioned to me that when she listens to the Cortex, she can sometimes "hear what's ahead," as she puts it."
"Does she, now?" It's curious-- she never told that to me. Jus' she wants to sleep with me and her brother ain't gonna get in the way. Well, there's such a thing as information overload, I suppose.
'Nara looks at me again as I stand an' stretch. "She tells me many things, Mal."
I shake my head. "'Course she does. Sometimes she don't talk for days, sometimes you can't get her to stop."
"She is more at ease since Miranda, too," she replies, skirtin' round it. I'm sure I know what the "many things" River's been tellin' Inara include. 'Nara's pretty good at guessin' what River's gettin' at too.
"That don' make the rest of it right," I say, feelin' impatient all of a sudden. I switch over my controls, and turn to head back down to the mess.
"Why do you let Alliance ways dictate your conduct, Mal? There are things that are right because you feel that they are, and there are things that are right because others tell you they are. The problem is, Mal, that the things others tell you are often wrong in the end."
I ain't gonna respond to that partin' shot, nor even pretend like I heard it. Instead, I head back to my bunk.
I can't sleep, but this time it ain't because thoughts o' the past. Nope-- this time it's because of that little bird, flittin' around and dancin' through my head, and those lips o'hers brushin' over mine. That's what she moves like, sometimes, a little bird. Small, light, like she's ready to fly away if you scare her. By the same token, though, she's a hawk, or one of those hunting birds. I suppose most men'd find it scary as hell findin' out that one of their crew's a re-engineered assassin with all kinds o'abilities foisted on her or woken up when they weren't ready for wakin', but her kind of fong leh ain't ever bothered me, much as some of the rest of 'em don't quite know how to deal with her. But what Inara said's true. She done settled down since Miranda, even if she still does have that strange way of sayin' what she's thinkin', code-like. I can understand that part, though. Sometimes it's hard enough sayin' anything, much less something sensible. She's always made sense to me. So my brain's spinnin' sights of the way she dances around and twirls jus' because she's feelin' like it.
She's less broken that way than I am. Don' know when I just did somethin' I felt like in the moment. A long time, that's for sure. Las' time I let myself do somethin' in the moment, just 'cause I felt like it-- well, it's a long part of the way she explains it as how I came on to be broken.
The fiftieth time or so I swat away thoughts of those lips of hers on me I give up and heave myself outta my bunk. Headin' down to the cargo bay, I decide on checkin' things over even's I know everything's fine, stowed away as it should be. I'm not quite sure as what to do next, so I head up to look at my engines. Kaylee's engines, more like. She ain't there, but her hammock is, so in I go. It's comfortable, nice view of those engines acting just as they should, and I see why she likes to spend so much time here. The noise is almost as soothin' as watchin' the Black pass us by.
I'm just driftin' off when I feel it, a littler weight than I'd expect, even though I know she's already tiny. O'course Kaylee's hammock's got room for two, so she makes room for herself. Jus' like she made room for herself in my head.
"Little bird, you just gonna keep peckin', ain't you?"
Her response is to drag my arm over her and rest her head at my shoulder. "Little birds peck until they get all the food that they need. It helps them keep flying."
I'm tryin' to think of a response that's not a contradiction of what I thought earlier, but that'd be a lie and her little fingers are doing this thing in my hair and that driftin' off feelin' comes along 'fore I can push somethin' offputtin' out past my lips.
The next morning I wake to her fingers tracing my face-- the first full night's sleep I've had in a dog's age. It's early still, and she says in my ear "Little bird's got to go fly the bigger bird now," as I open my eyes and turn to look at her. She's got a right playful look on her face as she lights out of the hammock without jostlin' me at all, she's just that graceful. Then she stands there a moment before tappin' my forehead again.
"See? Little bird is black to the Captain. No loud behind voices for either of them, and because each is bao bay. Yes? She's right, yes?"
She's right, o'course. Best sleep not just in a dog's age, but years, maybe ever since Serenity Valley, but I can't get the words past my mouth, 'specially that part about her bein' my bao bay. She tips her head, looks at me keenly, then says "Thinking's not saying out loud. He needs saying out loud. But little bird will keep pecking."
With that promise or threat, I ain't quite sure which, she leans in and ghosts a kiss on my forehead before she dances off toward the foredeck.
Sayin' out loud. That'uns always made me talk more'n the rest of them all put together, Zo' even included. But I ain't ready yet to say nothin' out loud. Not when there's still more thinkin' to do.