Disclaimer: Sadly I do not own any of these wonderful characters, or even the setting and world of Firefly. They all belong to Fox/Universal and Joss Whedon.
James Norrington and related belongs to Disney, Gore and Ted and Terry.
Setting: Takes place right after Down the Aisle
Pairings: Kaylee/Simon, Mal/Inara
Can’t Stop the Music
Chapter 21: Minuet
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Mal stared at the nearest soldier; half wishing he remembered what their rank was from the uniform. He couldn’t tell if they were overlanders or spacers, and he certainly couldn’t tell which one was sergeant from a private. He never did learn the proper symbols. That may have kept him from getting promoted to lieutenant and higher.
“Put your weapons down,” one man commanded and he did have stripe on his chest. “Drop your weapons and reach up.”
“Get off our lands,” Dune did not drop his gun, unlike the others, even Rick had dropped his weapon. “You have your own galaxy. This one is ours.”
“Rochester is a part of the Alliance,” Mal told him. “It would have been nice if we had won and each planet got to be ruled their own way.”
“Ceres is still ours,” Dune pointed at the soldier in charge.
“If she is yours then why did you leave?” Jayne asked. “Something scare you off?”
“Bi zui,” Rick pointed at the hired gun with one hand while still keeping the other in the air.
“All of y’all will keep your traps shut,” the sergeant commanded. “Which one of you is Malcolm Reynolds?”
“That would be me,” Mal waved his hands around, considering that nearly everyone except for Dune had their hands in the air. “I’m captain Reynolds.”
The sergeant nodded. “Your friends told us you were up here.”
“That has to be the other one,” another soldier pointed at Jayne. “He matches the description.”
“What description?” Jayne asked.
“It doesn’t need to be mentioned,” the sergeant pointed at Mal. “You and Mr. Cobb can retrieve your weapons and return to your ship.”
“Captain Reynolds?” Rick asked in belief.
“You son of a bitch,” Dune glared at him. “You goat murdering ball licker, you sold us out. You joined them.”
“No, I didn’t,” Mal didn’t care if a former Browncoat was upset over his actions, selling out and betraying a former soldier is one of the lowest things Mal can think of, but it was no where near as disgusting as what these bad coats had done. “I bought a transport ship, that is what I captain.”
“You sold us out,” Rick said. “You betrayed us all, for what? Was the pay good?”
“They ain’t paying us single bit,” Mal pointed to the slaves. They were milling around, embracing each other and appeared to have been praying, nearly all of them were shedding tears. “I did it for them.”
“They were paying you in slaves?”
“Boy is he dumb,” Jayne had already retrieved his gun and placed it back into his holster.
“It is because of you and your faction,” Mal matched Dune’s glower. “These were innocent people, volunteers and children, what did the children do you?”
“They are all Alliance,” Dune answered. “You are even worse than they are you treacherous slime. You hereby discharged from service. ” He raised his gun.
The gunshot did not come from Dunes, nor was it the sergeant or even Jayne’s. It came from a different soldier. The shot struck Dune’s shoulder, causing the former Browncoat to drop his weapon and to fall off his steed.
“You just don’t seem to get it,” Mal climbed back onto the mule’s saddle. “The war is over, has been for years and if anyone is going to receive a dishonorable discharge it would be you, not only for your actions. You can’t take care of your own coat, no self respecting Independent would allow a speck of dust to settle on their brown coat.”
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River watched the small hourglass as the fine grains fell through the slender opening and piled up. A part of her wanted to count each grain, another part told her she was just supposed to watch until the sand ran out and another part of her wanted to watch the other team.
“Needles,” Kaylee shouted out.
River stared up at the thick pad of paper that was propped up on one end of the table by a stack of books. Her brother was drawing several pointy objects.
“Spears, pencils,” Kaylee guessed but the fact Simon was continuing to draw and not pausing met all of Kaylee’s guesses were wrong. “Prickles, pins, pointy, sharp-“
“Yes,” Simon stood back from the pad of paper. “It was sharp.”
“You got the points,” River watched the last of the grains fall.
“Here you go,” Simon handed River the pen, thanks to the so called gift, River was always drawing and Inara was always guessing.
“I hope it won’t be too easy,” the last thing she had to draw was a heartburn. It was too easy, all she had to do was draw heart shape and cover it in flames.
“I wonder how the others are doing,” Kaylee said. “We haven’t heard back from, them.”
“Zoë and James have the easier part,” Inara said. “It’s Mal and Jayne that I am worried about.”
“The captain is with Jayne,” River said. “There is no need to worry.”
“River is a little bit right,” Simon said slowly, choosing his words. Saying there was no need to worry about the Captain in front of Kaylee was a bad idea. “If Jayne was alone then there would be a need to worry, and we do have communication.”
“I just feel like we should be doing more than playing games,” Kaylee took a sip from her canned juice. “Not that I don’t like playing games. It is fun and relaxing, I just wish we all can be here to play.”
“Would we have four to a team or four teams?” Inara asked.
“Four per team would have worked better,” Simon said. “Kaylee, you know when half the crew is out the rest of us play games like these.”
“I know,” Kaylee sighed. It was her idea to play something else than just cards and River knew it was because she wanted to include Inara in their game playing and cards did not suit Inara’s style. She preferred games like Chess, Go, and Carrom. They had discussed word games, but those were just too easy for River. “I guess I am kinda anxious since we got the news from Monty.”
“Zoë had said the Alliance had arrived,” Inara said. “That was five minutes ago. They will be fine, now let’s see if I can guess what River draws.”
River selected the category from the bowl. She was always the one to draw while Inara guessed. It was her suggestion, even though she would be honest and she was trying to keep from reading, she still had the advantage and the gift.
She drew a crown and promptly drew a large x over it.
“No crown,” Inara guessed. “No queen, no king.”
River drew a building, styled it after a skyscraper and on top of it she drew a large gorilla.
“I know this movie,” Inara pointed at the picture. “Mighty Joe Young, no that isn’t it. Bongo, Conga, Congo, Kong, I know. It’s King Kong.”
River tapped the crossed out crown and drew tiny blades of grass. She placed a cow in the middle of grass and an arrow pointing at the grass.
“King Kong grass,” Inara furrowed her brow as she continued to guess. “No king then, Kong grass, grassy Kong, Kong mulch,, Kong sod, Kong grass,” her eyes widened. “I know now. It is congress.”
“Yes,” River nodded before she handed the pen over to Kaylee.
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There were three things Jayne disliked, animals, prissy fancy boys, and crazy mind-reading girls coming at him with a knife. He was thankful when they returned the mules to the rental place and hoped he would never have to come across another animal soon, unless he was getting paid to be near one. He let anything slide as long as he was getting paid.
“Has been a mite bit too long,” Mal said while he paused to stretch and pop a few joints. “Since the last time I rode like that.”
“It hasn’t been long enough as far as I am concerned,” Jayne said. His damn mule had refused to go up the trail at first and the stinking beast wouldn’t stop the first time he yelled whoa. It also tried to nip him once.
“I have been out of practice,” Mal explained. “My backside feels a bit stiff, and a little sore.”
“Mine don’t feel bad at all, maybe if you worked out your glutes, then the next time you did ride it wouldn’t hurt.” Jayne lied about that, by the time they had reached the top of the hills he could no longer feel his backside at all.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be talking about this,” Mal slowed down as they walked past one of the Alliance shuttles. He stared up at the structure and frowned.
“Good idea,” Jayne could sort of feel what Mal was going through. He felt edgy himself just walking around in an Alliance infested environment. He wanted to advert his gaze from the soldiers, less he give them an ugly look, then again there was no telling if the Alliance would find him suspicious for not looking at them.
“They said they are in front of an silo. Except I can see three silo’s.”
“I thought she said red silly,” Jayne pointed at the red silo. “That could be it.”
It was the place. Both Zoë and Jimbo were seated on what appeared to be two over turned buckets surrounded by three large wooden crates and a few filled burlap sacks. There was also what appeared to be a rolled up blanket, a bottle of something, and a wicker basket, piled high with oranges.
“What have you spent our good money on?” Mal asked.
“Nothing sir, these were gifts,” Both Zoë and Jimbo stood up when they had seen them.
“Gifts?” Mal blinked. “Who gave you two gifts?”
The g-word was all that Jayne had to hear. With a grin he approached the basket of fruit. He paid little attention to the movement inside the crates, not until he heard clucking from one of them.
“What the?” Jayne stared into the slats and sure enough he saw a fat chicken inside, darting it’s head and staring at everything with it’s beady black eyes. Jayne inspected the other two, both also contained chickens.
“The townspeople,” Jimbo held out his arms to indicate the local folk. “Half of it was from them for informing them of the great atrocity, and the other is from the slaves for their gratitude for saving them, since they had no form of income the townspeople provided on their behalf.”
“That would explain it,” Mal pointed at the sacks. “What is in the bags?”
“Different flours and sugar,” Zoë said. “And chicken feed.”
“Why would they give us food for chickens?”
“Because we got chickens,” Jayne pointed at the crates. “Why we got chickens?”
“They are also gifts,” James explained.
“But chickens?” Jayne could not remove his gaze from the crate, and the bird was also staring back at him.
“You know how backwater they are.” Zoë stared at him.
“What are we going to do with them?” A thought suddenly traveled across his mind. “We can eat em.”
The second in command shook her head “We were looking forward to having eggs.”
“Fresh eggs sounds pretty good,” Mal nodded. “What is with-“
“Hell no,” Jayne shook his head. “We aint going to be traveling around with a bunch of Gorram eating birds.”
“My ship and my decision.”
Jayne scowled until he stared the oranges again. He was about to help himself to one until he noticed what the bottle had contained. “We got whiskey?”
“Yes we do,” James picked up the bottle before Jayne could touch it. “This bottle is to be shared by the entire crew.”
“Everything is to be shared,” Zoe added. “The commodore was a bit reluctant to accept the gifts until I told him they were for everyone.”
“Then that means I can get an orange,” Jayne reached for the fruit until Zoë slapped at his wrist.
“Not until we are back aboard Serenity,” Mal said.
Jayne stared at the oranges, at the whiskey and the chickens, nibbling on the fruit and sipping the booze would be adequate payment for traveling with the hens, at least for now.
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The pad of paper, the timer and the bowl full of what to draw had been put away when the announcement of the captain and the others returning. Kaylee waited patiently in the cargo hold for the Captain to knock at the door. She heard the knocks, but they have seemed to come from a lower direction than usual.
“I shouldn’t admit I was worried,” Kaylee said as she opened air lock. Her smile faded a bit when she saw Jayne with two large crates under his arms. James held another crate and a rolled up cloth. Her captain was carrying three large bags and Zoe held a basket of oranges and of what appeared to be hard liquor.
“We got chickens,” Jayne explained as he and the others entered.
“Did you stop for supplies?” Kaylee asked.
“We got a bit rewarded for rescuing Cyn’s folk,” her captain was the last to enter. “Jayne after you set them birds down get the straw and wire fencing.
“We have live chickens?”
“Yeah,” Jayne grunted. “Don’t get too attached to them, they’s going be food.”
“They will be a food source,” James offered her a sympathetic smile. “We will harvest their eggs.”
“Live chickens, fresh eggs, and oranges,” Kaylee counted off the awards. “What could even be better?”
“A bottle of whiskey,” Jayne smiled. “Mal said we going to have some after dinner tonight.”
“We can have actual cake for dessert,” Zoe added. “We have real flour and real sugar.”
“We also have this,” James unrolled the cloth, revealing several different colored patches.
“It is so pretty,” Kaylee examined the each of the different squares, there was a different picture in each one, some had pictures of trees, some had mama cats with their kittens, a puppy catching a Frisbee, a sailboat on water, children reading a book, a bunny with a ribbon, a farmhouse, there were just so many of them.
“The captain thinks it would look nice on the sofa in the common room.”
“It would,” Kaylee accepted it from his hand. “I will go put it on right now.”
“Kaylee,” Mal raised a finger.
“I’ll get to engine room after. It’s not like we are in the air right now, not with the lock open and Jayne outside.
“Good, commodore, I am giving you the task of setting up their coop.”
“Before I go, I need to let you know,” Kaylee relayed the message they had received earlier. “It’s from Monty. He thinks he may have found Eros.” She re-rolled the quilt before she ran towards the common room.
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