AN: Thank you all for those who read and review. LeaFairy124 (your reviews always put a smile on my face), Chibiboku (don't be so sure ;D), Moon FireStar, , Ookami Sakura, and DraculaLover99 for the recent reviews =) I didn't plan on posting this update quite as soon, but I got a reprieve from law school reading and couldn't resist working on the update (which turned in to 3 hours of me writing lol) Hope you all enjoy this update. On with the show!

No One Believes Me

XXX

Durran holds Saffron close to him... His face is away from Mal, while Saffron faces Mal. She looks vexed, though she hugs him back.

"Oh, my dear..." Durran says as he hugs her tighter.

Mal mimes hitting the guy. Saffron shakes her head slightly, no.

"Oh, my own sweet Yolanda..." Duran says with love in his voice. Mal is startled by this and mouths 'Yolanda?' He's more than a little amused.

XXX

Riddick's POV

I manage to drag Jayne's unconscious ass back to the hatch and hand him to a waiting Zoe and Book. They struggle to lower the dead weight of Jayne into the ship.

Book wheezes as they manage to get him back securely into the ship. "Lord…this boy weighs a solid ton."

I chuckle as I watch them staggering down the walkway trying to support his weight, and then turn and head back outside the hatch.

XXX

"Six years..." Duran says with longing in his voice.

"Is that all?" Saffron asks.

Mal can't help but be amazed at how well she goes into character. Inara was right, she's very good.

"From the day they found your shuttle…"

"They set on me at Parth, these awful men..."

Mal feels the need to interject now. "That wasn't me. I didn't know those men..."

"They said they wanted ransom, but they sold me to slavers..."

Again Mal interjects. "Also unknown to me..."

When Saffron or Yolanda, whatever her name is, says this Duran looks almost ashamed at himself. "When you left, I thought... Well, you disappeared the same day as Heinrich…"

She feigns ignorance now. "Heinrich?"

"The security programmer. And he was young, and I saw you two talking and I thought…but after they found his body..."

"They killed Heinrich? Ah! Guess he wasn't useful anymore." Mal says with mock surprise.

"I never stopped looking." Duran says to Saffron.

"I knew you wouldn't," and she even has tears in her eyes now. "That's the thought that kept me alive."

They kiss passionately. Mal looks around, at his nails, at the wall... "Well, that's my cue to skedaddle..." He finally says.

"Do I…"

"I promised him three hundred credits." Saffron says.

"Let me get you the money Yolanda promised you then." He turns to Saffron now. "You won't disappear again?"

"Never." She says as he walks out of the room. Barely a second passes before her loving look hardens.

XXX

River's POV

"River what was that?" Inara asks her after she has managed to calm down.

She does not know how to answer though. She does not even know herself what it was she saw. "She does not know."

"I mean…you were shaking so much I thought…"

She knows what she is afraid to bring up. "No, not Reavers."

Inara lets out a breath hearing that. They sit in silence for another minute before the girl speaks again.

"Do you have any siblings Inara?" She asks even though she already knows the answer. Her file had provided that information.

"No. I don't…Why do you ask?"

The girl looks up at her now. "If you had a sibling…what would you do if you felt like they were in danger?"

XXX

"We gotta move fast." Saffron says as she moves back to the Lassiter.

Mal returns to dismantling of the force field with his allen-wrench. "Yeah, he might come back and hug us in the act." He continues his dismantling.

"You don't know him. He's everything I said he was." Saffron says with some urgency.

"Oh, yeah, he's a killer of men. Why I'll bet he even eats up babies." Mal says sardonically.

"You're wasting time." She barks.

However, he's actually being very efficient while continuing his sarcastic remarks.

"But let's take a breath here…Yolanda. You're sneaking into a place you could walk into as welcome as glad news. What's the math on that?"

"The math on that is you not adding up that Durran Haymer would as soon cut your throat as he would…"

But he cuts her off. "…You would?"

"If possible." She feigns honesty.

"Nope. That ain't it at all. You'da knocked him on the brain, were that the case. You don't want him to know the truth. Unlike all the other… I'm gonna go with hundreds - of men you've married, you actually want this one to think well of you when you've gone."

There is a flash and the force field disappears. Mal reaches in easily and grabs The Lassiter.

Realization dawns on him then. "My god... Could it be I've actually met your real husband?"

She has backed up to her flower arrangement, whips out a small gun at him, furious. "Congratulations. Anything else you want on your tombstone, you piece of crap?"

"Now I'm intruding." Comes a voice from the doorway.

Both Mal and Saffron turn and look at Duran. She puts the gun down, genuinely upset that Durran has busted her.

"Durran... This isn't what it looks like..."

Mal tentatively raises his hand now. "Point of clarification…if it looks like we're stealing your priceless Lassiter, that's what we're doing. Don't ask me about the gun, though, 'cause that's new."

Duran merely sighs. "Well. I appreciate your honesty. Not, you know, a lot, but…"

"Durran, you don't know what he's forced me to…" She starts.

But Duran cuts her off. "Stop. Yolanda, please just stop." There is a terrible sadness in his voice.

And a frantic misery in hers. "Don't look at me like that!"

As her attention is on Haymar, Mal elegantly moves past him, drops the Lassiter into the trash cute just outside the door, and hits the button. He then moves closer towards the flowers he had been carrying earlier.

XXX

Riddick's POV

I'm straining to plug a piece of hardware into the top part of the control panel on the dumpster.

"Wash gorramit keep her steady!" I bark into the comm. The ships steadys out now and I don't have to strain quite as much.

"Almost done. I just got to plug the interface strike-plate in and..."

There's a clacking of machinery from the dumpster, and a light begins flashing.

"That's a pick-up call… How we doing?" Kaylee asks.

That's when we both hear it…the sound of machinery approaching.

"Riddick…"

I fumble with the plate, not bothering to answer her.

"Riddick!" She says again just as I snap the strike-plate into place and duck down quick.

Just as I do the drone slams into place, right where I had been a micro-second before. It attaches to the dumpster with a deafening boom.

XXX

Duran holds his hands up now. "Let's not get all worked up here."

"Are you really so naive? Do you think your life is anything to me?" She says bitterly.

Mal is next to his flower arrangement now, and quickly reaches in and pulls his own gun from it, drawing and pointing at her in a heartbeat.

"All right. No one's killing any folk today, on account of we got a very tight schedule. ..whatever your name is - we'll get on about our…." But she doesn't drop her gun. "DROP IT, NOW!" He says fiercely.

He comes at her as he shouts it, his whole attitude wrought with controlled fury, putting the gun to her head. She drops hers to the floor, knowing he means business, but never takes her eyes off Durran. She has real tears in her eyes now.

"Did you think I was a princess? That I would stay locked up here in the tower? With you?"

"I hoped." Duran says dejectedly.

"You're a rutting fool." She says bitterly.

"How long have you been with him?" Duran asks her as he motions to Mal.

Mal and Saffron reply at the same time albeit with very different answers. "Oh, we are not together."

"He's my husband."

"Well, who in the damn galaxy ain't?" Mal barks at her.

Duran merely shakes his head sadly. "I feel so bad for you."

"Bad for me? I'm not the patsy being stole from. If you had half a brain you'da called the Feds the minute you saw me." She spits out.

"Oh, I did."

And now both Mal and Saffron snap their attention to him and look at him with wide eyes.

XXX

River's POV

"You have a brother?" Inara asks surprised.

"Affirmative. A trauma surgeon, graduated top three percent of his class…brilliant, but…not like her." She adds at the end.

"You mean not a reader."

"Correct."

"And you think he's in danger."

"Yes. She…I… saw something, it could have been nothing, a warning, reality, or an illusion…she does not know. She stayed away to protect him…to spare him…but she feels, no knows… he isn't safe anymore."

XXX

They bolt down the glass corridor, the way they came in. Cops appear, coming after them. They push through the door, and end up at looked door. Saffron makes a beeline for the security panel at the opposite the locked door though, and hooks her device onto it and starts working.

Mal braces himself against the door they just came through and looks over his shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"Just give me a second." She says

Mal hears her enabler beep and the door he was just holding locks into place. Another set of beeps go off and the door Saffron is standing near slides open. Saffron runs off.

Mal regards the door and the pounding from the other side. "Good security." He says slightly impressed.

As they are running towards where they left the shuttle they are confronted by two more cops armed with sonic rifles, coming straight at them.

"Show some identification!" The cops yell.

Saffron is already spinning and kicking at the first one. Mal takes on the second one, hand-to-fist-to-face. He easily lays out the cop he's fighting. Then reaches down and grabs the fallen sonic rifle. Spins on Saffron and the cop she's still engaged with.

"Move!" He yells.

She dives out of the way as Mal fires a sonic blast. The second cop is down for the count. Mal tosses the sonic rifle aside. Saffron goes to grab it. Mal grabs her, yanks her from it.

"Nope. Let's go." He says as the continue running towards the shuttle.

XXX

River's POV

She moves to the front of the shuttle now and begins programing the shuttle for launch. Inara is right behind her, studying her as she works.

"She is fine." The girl says over her shoulder.

"River it's okay to let your guard down." The painted flower says as she moves to sit in one of the pilots seats.

"Calling the kettle black." She says to promptly stop Inara from pushing the issue. "We need to go…Captain Daddy wouldn't want us to be late."

XXX

…A few minutes later…

Mal pushes buttons, engages thee autopilot, and heads to the back as he straps on his holster. Saffron sits on a crate, facing away from him, sullenly ignoring the welling in her eyes.

"Had to be tough." Mal says.

"Yeah, have yourself a great guffaw." She snarks.

"I mean it. Six years, knowing he was holding such treasures, and you didn't move on him. I gotta figure that's a job you told yourself you'd never take. Till times got hard enough, and the one line you hadn't crossed..."

She turns to him now, fierce anger in her eyes. "My name's not Yolanda."

"Never entered my mind it was."

She looks away again. Her tone at first is worldly, bitter… but there is clearly more underneath. "I tried. I actually tried. I thought, "This is a decent man. The genuine article."

"A working man, struggling to get by with the barest necessities on his private floating island..."

"Yeah, he had money. I thought it would help. I thought if I had everything then I wouldn't want..."

"Heinrich the Security Programmer?" Mal volunteers.

She laughs. "You know, I'd forgotten his name."

"Addressing the itch of curiousness, you marry him too?"

"You must be loving this."

"Little bit." Mal admits. "I seen you without your clothes on before. Never thought I'd see you naked."

Saffron looks at him now with her tear stained face. "Can people ever change?"

"Depends on the person. I'm guessing the pain of this fades away, you'll just go back to being what you are."

"What is that?" She asks.

He sits next to her. "A brilliant, beautiful, evil double-crossing snake. Cheer up, weepy: you made yourself a boatload of hard cash today. You can question the meaning of life on a floaty island of your own for a while."

"You won't tell anyone about me breaking down?"

He nods. "I won't."

"Then I won't tell anyone how easily I got your gun out of your holster." She says as a smile forms on her lips.

He looks down. "I'll take that as a kindness." He says begrudgingly.

Saffron stands, her gun pointed at Mal's belly. "You just may be the most gullible fool I ever marked. And that makes you special."

Mal stands now. "Well, you got me at barrel's end, who am I to argue. What's your move?"

"We'll be settling down in the desert. Leave you to set a spell. Oh, and speaking of naked..."

Now Mal is angry. "No, now that's just low."

"Kinda evens things out, though, don't you think? Pants."

She cocks the hammer, which makes him hastily start undoing his trousers. "Now, I really don't see the benefit to this. I mean, however I may slip, you're not gonna catch my crew with their trousers down."

XXX

Riddick's POV

We're all on the bridge now, well…all except for Cobb who we propped up in the infirmary. There is a collective sigh of relief, and no one is really saying much as Wash pilots us towards the drop point.

"That's funny…" he says as he begins to examine some of the read outs on the console.

"What is?" Zoe asks.

"She's not letting me turn…she's locked in place." Wash says as he tries to manhandle the wheel to turn.

I chuckle. "I think this would be the double cross we were told to expect."

XXX

"No! No! You dirty, dirty whore...!" Mal screams as the shuttle takes off without him.

He is very much naked and standing in the wasteland of the desert. He moves over and sits his ass down on one of the rocks, sighing to himself.

He chuckles. "Well, River was right about everything except the whole naked part." He says to himself.

XXX

River's POV

In different part of the desert sits the disposal bin; not far from it sits Serenity's spare shuttle. They slowly approach the bin, its lid is open and garbage comes flying out of the bin.

"God. Oh! Where is it...?" Comes a voice from inside the bin. "Oh! It's not here."

"Looking for this?" Inara says as she looks down onto Saffron and holds up the Lassiter for her to see. Saffron's eyes go as wide as saucers.

"Wonder if it works?" The painted flower says as she pulls the trigger. Nothing happens though.

"Oh-well. Still worth a fortune." The girl says with a shrug. "Anyway, these work fine." The girl says as she and the painted flower raise their guns.

"Oh... Honey, you look horrific." Inara taunts Saffron who is now turning as read as her hair in anger.

"What are you doing here?" She spits out.

"Oh. Just our part of the job."

Saffron looks startled now. "What part of the job?"

"You know, I put on the big act, storm away in a huff; then we fly off, wait for you to double cross Mal, beat you to the rendezvous spot and grab the loot before you can get to it."

"What, you didn't see it coming?" The girl asks with a Cheshire cat grin.

Saffron makes a move toward the edge but both Inara and the girl point their weapons at her, the girl cocking her handgun for added effect.

"Uh-uh…You know…the girl is a little disappointed. Some of the crew's performances weren't quite as nuanced as they could have been."

"I thought they might have tipped the fact that we were playing you from the second Mal untied you…Oh, well. Guess not." As she says this, she's set aside The Lassiter and picked up a small remote control. She aims it at the bin, presses a button… and the lid slams shut on Saffron.

"No! You can't do this!" Saffron says from inside the bin.

"You're not going to die, you big baby. The authorities will be here in a few hours to dig you out." The girl says as she slams the butt of her pistol against the bin to shut her up.

She walks to where Inara is perched. "Race you back?" She says with a smile.

"You want to get Mal or should I?" Inara asks as she hops down.

"We should meet Serenity first…the girl has an important matter to look into."

Inara doesn't say anything as they separate. She already knows what the girl needs to find out.

XXX

…A little while later…

River's POV

…Have you ever felt
Something evil
Lurking around…

It wasn't hard to find him. She knew he would be in a Core hospital and within the surgery department. Hermes had been able to locate and hack into the security feeds in Saint Lucy's within a matter of minutes.

…You can't call it
You can't shake the feeling
Quiet do not make a sound
But the wind seems to speak
Something's here in the room with me…

He's sitting at his desk…pouring over charts with a meticulous eye. There is no indication he's being held… has been harmed…nothing. But it doesn't change what she feels.

…I know that something is wrong here
I can feel it but no one believes me
I know that something is strange here
I can sense it but no one believes me…

Book looks at the girl with sympathetic eyes. "He doesn't seem to be in any harm River. Are you sure about this?"

…I feel like something is wrong here
I can sense it but no one believes me
I'm not crazy hell no I'm not loony
I'm not insane
Take a second
I heard it
I know it…

"She knows it."

XXX

…Meanwhile…

"Yeah... that went well." Mal says as he remains seated.

Inara emerges from Serenity's open ramp now and stops at the sight she sees.

"You call this "going well"?" She asks barely concealing her laughter.

Mal gets up now and walks towards her. "We got the loot, didn't we?"

"Yes, but…" Inara says as she does her best to not glance at his naughty bits.

"Then I call it a win. What's the problem?" Mal says with a smile.

"Should I start with the part where you're stranded in the middle of nowhere or the part where you have no clothes?"

"All according to plan Nara." The both begin walking back to Serenity now.

"Really? I thought the plan was for River and I to act as a failsafe in case everything else went wrong. Like, for instance, if Saffron disabled Serenity and left you for dead."

"Nonsense. You two had a key role to play in this. How sad would you have been if you hadn't gotten to play it?"

"Heartbroken."

"See? All according to plan."

They reach Serenity, where Zoe, Wash, Kaylee, Book, Riddick, and River await. As Mal moves up the ramp they are all barely able to conceal their laughter.

"Wash, take us out of the world. Zoe, contact Brennert and Ellison, see if they'd be interested in fencing a priceless artifact for us." Mal says as he walks past them.

Zoe, Wash, and Book just stand there, staring at his nakedness.

"What?"

Zoe and Wash mutter "nothing," and immediately head off towards the bridge. Book eventually comes to his senses and excuses himself as well. Kaylee runs up and gives the Captain a quick hug before moving to close up the cargo bay doors.

River smiles at Mal. "Good work, Captain Daddy."

His smile turns to a frown now. "How many times are we gonna go through this Bit…I ain't your Daddy!"

"Subjective." She merely says as she waves him off. "She would like to discuss something with you though."

"I'm all ears, speak your mind."

"Maybe you should put some clothes on first."

XXX

AN: And so our time with Saffron comes to an end. Parting is such sweet sorrow LOL. Hope you all enjoyed Our Mrs. Reynolds/Trash. Till next time ;)