Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Operative was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. The capture that had recorded his death and those of his shipmates was discovered, along with their mostly-eaten bodies, by a rare Alliance patrol out in the border planets. And although it may fairly be said that the word of an Alliance patrol is not always worth much, in this case they did not lie. The Operative was, and had been for years, as dead as a pack of Reavers can make a man. And as all Rim folk know, that is pretty gorram dead.

Malcolm Reynolds knew he was dead. Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? The Alliance had flashed the information across every news bulletin, to show all their viewers the fate of those who trusted or stood with rebels. Not that it was doing much to quash the New Independents, but regardless, Mal had seen the gruesome pictures on the Cortex. 'Course, one couldn't say he was dreadfully cut up by the sad event, seeing as he shrugged it off and continued with his plan to drop off stolen goods—in truth, honoring the day with an undoubted bargain.

There were other faces, of other dead, that haunted him far more. If he spent a scrap of grief on the Operative, he might get no sleep without dark dreams. Old dreams, of rosemary and bullets in kneecaps and an urge to believe in anything. Newer dreams, of rare smiles and a loose pink dress and a gun that found its mark with mathematical precision. The Operative and his talk of better worlds had shrunk to barely a blip on Mal's radar screen.

"God rest ye merry gentlemen, may nothing you dismay…" 

Mal gave a wordless snarl and resisted the urge to throw his screwdriver across the room. It weren't as if the walls of his house needed any more dents. But he'd get Kaylee for this. How she'd managed to program his screen so that Christmas carols played whenever someone waved him, he didn't know. No more had he been able to discover how to fix the thing. His old mechanic knew what she was doing.

"Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day…"

Not that anyone had waved him much, lately. When he was forced to walk towards what passed for civilization nearby, he glared at the dirt road, argued for lower prices on everything from nails to auto-locks to eggs, and snapped at anyone who smiled. None of the out-of-work folks called on him for a credit or two, no settler ever asked him when the next ship to Jiangyin would be here, no passing-through company head ever inquired of him where to find a decent Companion. Certainly few came around to his small house anymore, not even to try and salvage any parts from the now-grounded Firefly back behind. Probably something about the 'Trespassers Will Be Shot' sign on the fence, along with the addendum 'Don't Even Think About It' scrawled beneath.

"To save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray…"

But what did Mal care? It was the very thing he liked, now—to edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance.

"Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy…"

If he didn't answer the wave, the gadget Kaylee had stuck in there on her last visit would just keep singing, and most likely get twice as loud. Mal tossed his screwdriver back in the box, stomped into his cluttered living room, and punched the buttons that would patch him through to whoever was (unwisely) trying to contact him.

Wash's cheery, if pale, face appeared on the screen. "Hey, Mal. So what's this I've heard about you leading the local children's choir and growing a big garden full of daisies?"

Mal snorted. "I hope you didn't buy any stocks from whoever told you that."

"Oh, I don't speculate," Wash assured him. "I'm saving all my nonexistent credits for our currently nonexistent heat generator. You know, I think our local electrician wants to murder us. I'd sleep with one eye open to guard our backs, but Zoe says that makes my face look weird."

"Your heat's not on?"

Wash shrugged. "The winters here are pretty mild. We'll be alright. I've got faith."

"Really? And where's faith gotten you so far? Stranded on that backwards rock, stuck in your house all day while Zoe strikes deals with—"

"Don't you put blame on Zoe, Mal. She does what she has to so the other people on this backwards rock don't starve to death."

"Right, then." Mal made himself busy righting an overturned chair. "If that's your story, you go ahead and stick to it. 'Long as it makes you feel better and all."

"Look, as delightful and charming as these little fights are, that's not why I waved." Wash suddenly winced, going even whiter.

Abandoning the chair endeavor, Mal hurried back to the screen. "You alright?"

"Yeah. Yeah." Wash rubbed his stump of a right leg, gone below the knee. "Just… infections flared up in the last few days."

"I thought that doctor you pulled in said they were gone."

"Sadly, they don't teach omniscience in medical school. If he went to medical school. I'm starting to have my doubts about that."

"Hard to find anyone schooled in anything out where you are."

"True enough. And count on those Reavers to keep up their nastiness even after being sliced and diced by our own personal River, may she rest in peace." Wash sighed. "I guess we just really wanted the infections to be gone, but we probably should have listened to Simon when he told us it wasn't likely. Speaking of whom, you should tell him to, you know, sleep. Occasionally. In the spirit of Christmas and all."

Mal tapped his foot. "Tell him when? I don't see him. Why would I?"

"Oh, right." Wash nodded emphatically. "I remember. It was an accident that you handed over a bundle of credits the size of my head to get Serenity hauled to that particular planet. And it was a total and complete coincidence that Simon was helping run that hospital four miles away from the house you are inadvertently renting right now."

"It's out of Alliance sight," Mal snapped.

"Or it was, before that ship full of injured Unification veterans decided your town was a nice, fun place to be. Mal, you know you'd have cut out of there faster than Jayne confronted with a posse of nuns if it hadn't been for—"

"Not something I'm mighty interested in discussing."

"Fine. But listen. I know how you feel about this, but Zoe—"

There was a loud thump from Mal's porch. He rose, hand on his gun. Normally, he'd have relied on his lock to keep anyone out, but it had broken a week ago—he'd known all along the town's locksmith had overcharged him for the thing—and it was just possible there were a few daring thieves left. "Hold on. There's someone—"

The door swung open with a bang, and Kaylee burst in. "Merry Christmas, Captain! It's shiny to see you!"

Mal shoved his gun back in its holster. "Fei hua."

She had so heated herself with rapid walking in the fog and frost that she was all in a glow, her eyes sparkling and breath coming in clouds. And behind her came a smiling Inara, snowflakes caught in her black curls, blowing on her hands and stamping her feet to warm them. 

"Christmas, fei hua?" Kaylee repeated, pulling off her pink knitted hat. "You don't mean that."

"I do." Mal dragged over the newly-righted chair over and dropped into it. "Merry Christmas, you say. What right have you to be merry? Hell, what reason have you to be merry? Going moonstruck over your bedding down while the 'verse falls to pieces."

"Come, then," returned Inara gaily. "What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? No one can accuse you of, as you so poetically say, going moonstruck over bedding down with anyone."

Having no real answer to that, Mal had to be content with rolling his eyes. "Fei hua."

"Don't be cross, Captain!" Kaylee grabbed a crate and sat on it. 

"What else can I be, when I live in a 'verse of idiots like this?" Mal scowled at the window over their heads. "Merry Christmas? To hell with merry Christmas. What's Christmas but a time for paying bills without coin, a time for looking at what's past and knowing that what's to come won't hardly be better, a time for reckoning up all the folk you've lost and finding you've met none who can replace 'em?"

"Mal." Inara took a step towards him. "We aren't forgetting River and Book."

"We just don't want to lose no one else," Kaylee added. "'Specially not you. Can't have you vanishin' on us."

"Yeah, listen to them," Wash put in from the screen. "You don't know that what's to come can't have its good points."

"Wash!" Kaylee grinned. "Didn't see you there before. How're the kids?"

"Thriving, naturally. After all, they inherited Zoe's smarts, beauty, gun aim, determination, and killing-with-pinky abilities. Oh, and my dashing good looks, of course."

"Of course." Kaylee pointed at Mal. "Tell him. Christmas ain't no time to hide away alone."

"I'm in agreement. Still, I think if Mal could work his will, everyone who went about saying 'Merry Christmas' would be boiled in their own plum puddings and buried with stakes of holly through their hearts."

"That's sounding more appealing by the minute." Mal got up, kicked his chair over again, and went to his cupboard to get more screws.

"Come on, Captain."

"Kaylee, you celebrate Christmas your own way, and let me celebrate it in mine."

"Celebrate it?" Inara glanced around at the dingy room, where most of the chairs looked liable to collapse if sat on, and where the light strips were so clogged with dust as to render them pretty much useless. "But you don't celebrate it."

"Let me leave it be, then." Mal threw a few screws into the wrong compartments, just because. "Much good may it do you. Much good has it ever done you."

"There is are many things that do me good, though they may not help me balance my budget." Inara laid a hand on Kaylee's shoulder. "And yes, Christmas is among those. But it's the only time I know of, in all the year, when men and women open their shut-up hearts freely—when they realize that we're all bound on the same journey, that we live and die together, as humans. And therefore, Mal, though it has never added one credit to my bank account, I say that it has done me good, and will do me good, and I say, God bless it!"

Wash applauded, and Mal whipped around to glare at him. "You want me to disconnect you?" He turned back to Inara. "You're quite the powerful speaker, ain't you? They teach you that in Whore Academy?"

Kaylee got up. "Don't be like that, Captain. Say you'll have dinner with us tomorrow. We came 'specially to invite you. Jayne's goin' to be there too, he's comin' all the way from Beylix!"

"Like hell I will."

"But why? Why do you keep—"

"Fine, little Kaylee, answer me this." Mal tossed the screws down on the table. "Why'd you quit shipping out with boats as are good enough for you? Why'd you ground yourself here, doing repair jobs for transporters that wouldn't know decent work if it kicked 'em in the ass, all so you could keep sharing a bed with a woman who's whoring for someone else, often as not?" He jerked his head at Inara. "Why'd you do that?"

"'Cause I fell in love." 

"'Cause you fell in love," growled Mal. "About the only thing more ridiculous than a merry Christmas, I'd say."

"Me carin' 'bout 'Nara ain't ridiculous. 'Sides, you ain't said lovin' was silly when—"

"Baobei, just leave it." Inara peered at Mal. "We want nothing of you. We ask nothing of you. Why cannot we be friends?"

Mal turned away. "Have a nice, snowy walk back."

"I'm truly sorry, then." She looked at Kaylee. "But we'll keep our humor to the last, and you may count on that. So, a merry Christmas, Mal!"

"Cut the nice, then. Just have a snowy walk."

"And a happy New Year!" Kaylee pulled her hat back on.

"Mayhap a blizzard walk."

Inara took her gloves from her pocket. "Have a lovely holiday, Wash. Tell Zoe and your children we hope to come to visit you sometime."

"You'll be welcome. Tell Jayne merry Christmas. Oh, and if you can, try and somehow convey my utter shock that he's still alive without us to do public relations for him."

"I'll do my best." Inara winked, and she and Kaylee vanished out the door. 

"And there's you." Mal walked back to the wave screen. "Arm and leg half torn off by Reavers, raising three lunatic kids out near the Rim, talking about a merry Christmas. Mayhap I should get the Alliance to haul me off to some nice, padded cell, 'cause you've all gone just as brain-soft here."

"My brain is very soft," Wash agreed solemnly. "Soft and fluffy and sweet. Like a marshmallow. Well, it's just as Jayne says. A soft answer turneth away wrath, and then while wrath is looking the other way, you elbow it real hard in the jaw."

"Jayne would say that." 

"Listen, though. I want you to talk with Zoe."

Mal glowered at the row of switches just above the image of Wash's face. "'Cause that went so well last time. We're done. Might've thought you'd be right pleased. Weren't you always keen on her not taking orders from me?"

"I'm not happy about anything that makes Zoe as sad as this. She misses you, Mal. She doesn't need another husband, I've got enough commitment in my big toe to get us through the next fifty years. But she needs someone who knows about being a soldier." Wash paused. "Someone who went through that war with her. I can wake her up from the nightmares, but I wasn't there for the real thing. It'd mean more than you know if you'd wave her once in awhile. Or even just send a letter."

The sound of a door slamming echoed through from Wash's end of the wave, followed by approximately one hundred and fifty decibels of excited squealing—a level of noise Mal would have attributed to a close-up ship engine before he discovered that kids have superhuman vocal cords. Wash swung himself around in his chair, grinning. "Light of my life, song of my heart, destroyer of my poor, pitiable eardrums. How did your people do hauling that shipment of insulin over the bridge?"

Zoe came into view, balancing two-year-old Lumi on one hip. Despite himself, Mal squinted hard—Lumi was the only Washburne kid he'd never seen in person, and captures weren't no replacement. Fact was, he'd have loved to know how she looked for real. Plus, the wave screen were too small for him to see Rose or Benjamin even a bit, though he could hear them chattering away.

"Truth is, ain't a bridge no more." Zoe kissed the top of Wash's head. "It's a bunch of rotten boards as have gotten ten miles downstream by now, I reckon. Thing cracked right under us afore we got halfway across."

"Ai ya." Wash laid a hand on her arm. "What happened to your people?"

"Tomas got knocked out. Near drowned, too." Zoe ran fingers over a bruise on her own cheekbone. "We think he hit his head on a rock when he fell. He weren't awake yet when I left, family still watching him. Natasha's the one who dragged him to shore, and she's got a whole mess of cuts and bruises now. Chang and I did get most of the insulin afore the river swept it away, and the containers were waterproof, 'course. Still, if Tomas don't make it, his folks will have one hell of a time trying to farm without…" Zoe stopped, eyes alighting on the screen.

"Mal's going to talk to you," Wash said brightly.

"Says who?" Mal demanded.

"Says me. Or I'll put an ad on the Cortex telling everyone there's a shiny brand new brothel right exactly where your house is."

"You're a horrible person."

Zoe handed Lumi to someone, either Benjamin or Rose, outside the view of the screen. "Think you all should go see what's in the shed. Helena's been out with her mule all day, hauling Christmas trees, and it's my belief she made a stop here." More hundred-and-fifty-decibel-level squealing ensued, along with the thunder of feet as the Washburne kids shot for the shed. Wash grabbed his cane—despite multiple attempts, they'd never managed to find a prosthetic that worked well for him—and limped off after them.

Slowly, Zoe sat down in his abandoned chair. "How's life treating you, sir?"

Mal knew perfectly well that the 'sir' was more a result of habit than of continued respect, but tried to ignore the fact. "Been worse. Suppose as long as it's life and not death, that's something. You?"

"Taking it one day at a time." Zoe unbuckled her gun belt. "Only way to manage, if truth's told. Wash, he still misses flying and he's in more pain than he likes to admit. Plus, crop failed this year. Folks are starving and they look to me to make it right." She stared at her hands. "I'm mayor here, not God. We're borrowing against next year's rice yield, but if that don't come through…well. We'll manage, we always do."

"Kids okay?"

"Yeah." A mite more joy shown through Zoe's eyes. "You won't believe what Rose did the other day. Gezim—he's a kid she knows—took a tumble on some ice while they was out playing, broke his ankle. She put him in her sled and hauled him back, all by herself. And Ben, he started school this fall. Asked me before he left the first day by when he could expect to know everything, 'cause apparently old Isaiah down in town knows everything and Ben wants to be like him, but without growing a long white beard. Few days ago, it was, Lumi started talking like crazy. She's known some words for awhile, but now she's piping up near constant."

"Good." Mal paused. "Hear tell there's some fighting 'round your area. Ain't none of that touched you, has it?"

"Nah. Mayhap it'll even last. But there's a few hotheads in town who've been snarling at each other 'bout which side has the right of it. A few said they'd go fight for Unification, given the chance, few others said they'd join the New Independents, if it came to that."

"You told 'em, didn't you?" Mal leaned forward. "They ain't forgotten what the Alliance done, have they? Whole planet full of dead—"

"I told 'em, all of 'em, that they'd best put their minds to building something as would last longer than a war." Zoe gripped her gun belt. "Farm, shop, herd, family. All better choices, I said, than shipping out to get yourself shot."

"Zoe, we were those hotheads once, remember? Where'd we be, where'd the 'verse be, if we'd sat at home and let the Alliance run wild over everything we'd worked to build?" 

"Don't rightly know where'd we'd be, sir, and if truth's told, neither do you. All I know is, my people work hard to farm every scrap of land they got, to ply any trade they can eke out. You and I, we've seen better than most how war rips a place to shreds. I don't care whose ships drop bombs no more—they're bombs and they kill folk no matter what."

Mal jumped up and kicked his chair away. "So you don't care if peace on your planet is paid for with other folks' blood? The Alliance might give with one hand, but they always take with the other. Serenity fell out of the sky 'cause of 'em. They put on a smiling face while they let thirty million people die, and that's even after all they tried to take from us. You might do well to remember that afore you go humbling yourself to 'em!"

Zoe sprang to her feet, voice quiet and furious. "That weren't no easy choice, so don't you dare act like I buckled right off. But I'd have failed the folk here, had I not. They were dropping like flies, with the fever and coughing up blood, and all I had to do to get doctors brought in was sign that tax contract."

"It puts you at their mercy, and we all know how much that's worth! I'd rather have coughed up blood 'til they put me in the grave than—"

"Every dirt farmer ain't you, and you ain't got the right to demand everyone lie down and die for your cause!"

"It was your cause too!" Mal yelled. "Afore you went and decided to shut your eyes to their wrong in exchange for a few plots of land, on a world as could go the same way as Miranda!"

"Fine." Zoe's voice was icy now. "Go out, get yourself a husband missing an arm, a leg, and his good health, plus two girls and a boy who ask for dinner every day, plus a town that comes to you with their every injury and quarrel. Then try to hang onto the high moral ground."

Mal opened his mouth, ready to shout some more, but just then Rose's head appeared in the wave screen. "Momma, what's going on? We heard folk yelling."

"Nothing, honey." Zoe gave Mal a cold stare. "Think we're done here." 

"I'd say the same." Mal reached over and slapped down the nearest switch, cutting the connection.

He tried to calm himself, tamp down on the need to lash out, but the rage still simmered. To be fair, it took only a mite of provocation to bring it to the surface. Finally, Mal rubbed his face, re-sorted the few screws he'd thrown into the wrong sections, and went to the door to finish fixing his lock.

Twenty minutes later, the new mechanism was securely in place. But even the confirmation that no one, but no one, would be able to burst in on him managed to rid Mal of the sting from the earlier visit and the wave. It was times like this he longed, more than usual, for a ship that still functioned. Flying out into the black rid him of itches like this, at least somewhat.

Without Serenity, he was better off alone. Too much rage he couldn't dispel. 

Mayhap walking would help. Not near as good, but it weren't nothing, and it didn't look liable to snow hard until evening. Mal dragged his boots out from under the table and yanked them on, buttoned his coat, and marched outside.

Only to run headlong into Simon, who was clutching a smallish box and a bundle of papers covered in plastic, and appeared very much as if he'd crawled through three snowdrifts to get there. "Excellent. I was wondering if I'd have to climb in a window."

"In a—don't you have no sense of self-preservation?" Mal spluttered. "I shoot folk who climb in my windows without asking!" 

"I'd have asked." Simon tried to brush the ice off his coat, mostly failing. "And then you'd have yelled at me to mind my own business, and I'd have ignored you and done it anyway." He peered at Mal. "You look like you're not eating enough. Either that or you need vitamin supplements. Maybe both."

"Why are you pulling medic's babble on me?" Mal tried his best to appear as if his yard fence was far more fascinating than Simon's concerned face. Unfortunately, he suspected his acting skills weren't up to a lie that big. "Ain't you got others as need help more?"

"I've spent years perfecting the ancient art of medical babbling. You clearly don't appreciate talent when you see it. And yes, I have others who need help more right now, but if you don't eat well, you won't have energy to fight it if you get sick."

"Don't plan on getting sick."

Simon shook his head. "And Tamara didn't plan on that horse fracturing her skull, Winston didn't plan on getting his hand caught in his ship's engine, and Yoshiko and Evan didn't plan on their twin babies coming down with ear infections. Danger doesn't only come from the wrong end of a gun, Mal."

"Well, you ain't looking top-notch yourself." Mal realized as the words came out of his mouth that they were actually true. Simon's eyes were dark with exhaustion and he was definitely thinner than he should be. "Wash says you ain't sleeping."

"I try. It's just—easier not to." Simon laughed a little, but there was a touch of bitterness in it. "There are nights I have to grab a blanket and lie down near my heat generator, because it rattles. That way I can almost fool myself into thinking I'm still on Serenity, that it's Serenity's engines vibrating. Otherwise I can't sleep at all."

Mal glanced briefly to the side of his house where his ship sat, far too quiet while it should've been humming with power. He weren't about to own up to Simon that he'd done exactly the same thing with his own generator more than once. "Ain't working no more. No point in wishing different." Even though he did.

"Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean." 

Simon quoted the stanza so quietly Mal almost didn't understand the words. But he did, and wished he hadn't for sure. "Wouldn't have thought you'd miss it so much. Ain't you doing well enough for yourself, up at that hospital?"

"In many ways, yes. The funding is better this year, and we have a much more proficient psychiatrist on staff, though she's overworked. But River's vanishing."

Mal raised his eyebrows. "How's she going to vanish more? She's—" He cut himself off. Talking of River might make him snappish—he still harbored guilt for not stopping her when she'd left—but he hoped he had enough decency not to snap at her brother over it.

"Yes, I'm aware she's dead." Simon's face twisted with heartbreak, but so briefly Mal almost missed it. "That's not what I meant. Everything on Serenity just spoke to me of her. I could look at a control switch, or a door handle, or a pair of chopsticks, and remember, oh, River flipped that, or turned that, or used those to eat. It was just a little bit like having her there."

"Well, you could have brought the chopsticks with you." It was a painfully inept response and the knowledge of that only irked Mal more.

Simon didn't offer a reply to that, not that it deserved one. "It's funny. Serenity almost felt alive, herself. I didn't realize that until I walked into my room in the house I rent with my colleague. I thought, I need pulmonary stimulators. This place isn't breathing."

"Oh, really? Thought all you needed was to stack a bunch of books against the wall and suddenly your home is your castle." Mal kicked himself, in mental knee joints and ribcage, the moment the words left his mouth. This was awkward enough without alluding to—well, he weren't even going to allude to it in his head.

"That works best when—never mind." Simon dropped his gaze to the papers in his hands. "You talked to Wash, then? How is he?"

Mal shrugged. "Can't say for sure. Them wave screens can make you look on the edge of death if you squint the wrong way. He might be fine."

"I don't think he is. He's managed to stay relatively healthy for so long, but those kinds of infections, from Reavers' spears and knives—I've seen some of them, since." Simon paused. "They don't always kill you, but his body went through a lot of trauma when he lost those limbs—"

"Wash ain't dying." Mal dug his nails into the palm of his hand. "And what're you doing, speaking of it so calm? Like you was reading a grocery list."

Simon glared. "I'd love to scream and break things, believe me, but sadly that's not a luxury I have. Getting paralyzed with grief is not exactly compatible with setting bones and pulling bullets out of patients."

"You're not just a doctor," Mal snapped. "Grieve on your own time."

"I forget." 

"Forget what?"

"That I'm not just a doctor. It's not as if anyone reminds me."

Mal frowned at him, thrown. "What about Kaylee and 'Nara? Were you to take a fancy to visit 'em, I know they'd welcome you."

"They've got—they're happy. I'm still—I don't want to spoil that." Simon cleared his throat. "The only reason I brought up Wash is because I'm worried about Zoe, if anything happens to him."

"What?" Mal started. "Zoe can take care of herself. She already brings in all the coin that family has."

"Yes, she provides the income, but Wash provides psychological support. I get the sense she's fairly emotionally isolated apart from him. And mental health is vital to physical health."

Gorram doctor's jargon. Why did he have to miss that, of all things? "Alright, but what am I supposed to do about it? I ain't no good at providing any kind of emotionally-supporting-anything."

Simon looked straight at him. "You can be, when you try. I remember. You don't have to agree with what Zoe did, just don't act as if she betrayed you personally, because she didn't."

"Not a road you're wanting to go down with me right now."

"Yes, well, you have that figurative road barricaded with figurative 'Keep Out' signs and strewn with figurative land mines. If I don't walk down it, no one else is going to. Zoe's important to your well-being, I know she is. Losing her is like damaging your spinocerebellar tract. It causes problems with your proprioception."

"Tone down the medical talk and mayhap I'll understand."

"Fine. Oversimplified layperson's explanation. Without her, you don't know where your limbs are in the space around you."

"That don't make sense. Cut the doctor metaphors."

Simon rolled his eyes. "It was actually a simile, not a metaphor. The point is, you need Zoe as much as she needs you. I hate the Alliance, you know that, but your crew should be more important than refusing to touch anything they offer."

"Ain't none of the folks I flew with considering themselves my crew no more."

"Yes, they are."

Mal pressed his lips together. He'd lost Serenity, and the thought of trying to replace her just made him want to throw a wrench through the window. He was no man for others to follow anymore, and knowing that galled his soul. "Mayhap you'd best say what you came for, 'cause I'm reckoning it weren't just to bring up Wash and Zoe."

"True, it isn't only that. I'm visiting most of the houses on the south side of town." Simon chuckled a little. "We drew lots at the hospital and I came up short. I've been knocked into five piles of snow today, and Lela the wood carver chased me to her gate with an awl. Though as she doesn't particularly like anyone, I didn't take that to heart."

Mal eyed him warily. "What exactly are you doing?"

"We—the doctors and nurses at the hospital—we're trying to get a Christmas breakfast and dinner together for our patients. And we'd like it not to consist of packages where you add hot water and it tastes like sawdust, which is what they mostly have to eat in winter." Simon set down the box and peeled the plastic covering off his papers. "Many of the residents will have families coming in who'll bring them something, but the veterans are all from off-world and—" 

"Wait one second. Veterans?"

Simon nodded. "There are quite a few of them. When they lose insurance, they flock to border planets with decent hospitals because you don't have to pay as much." 

"The veterans that ship in from Londinium? You're collecting coin for them?" Mal stared, incredulous. "It ain't no wonder Lela chased you with an awl! Simon, they're Alliance. Fought for Unification. They murdered folk just for wanting some freedom, folk who couldn't fight back. They propped up the government that went and cut River's brain open."

"I'm aware of that, believe me." Simon held out his set of papers. "But an Independent hospital that's willing to treat Alliance veterans does a great deal more to change people's minds about us than leaving them out to freeze in the cold would. Besides, they're my patients as much as anyone, and I don't just owe good care to people I personally like." 

Mal pushed the papers back into Simon's hands. "Ain't there any prisons for these veterans of yours?"

"Yes, there are plenty of prisons."

"What about work camps? Are those still 'round?"

"They are," Simon retorted. "I wish I could say they weren't."

"Oh, you do, do you?" Mal crossed his arms.

"Yes! What kind of Independents are we, if we're so independent we think people who are hurt don't need help?" Simon shot him a furious look. "You should understand. If this were an Alliance-controlled planet and you got sick, you'd be in the same basket!"

"I don't owe 'em nothing!" 

"It's not about repaying a debt, it's about correcting an injustice. Besides, it's me who's doing the asking, not them, and I think you do owe me something. So what are you going to give?"

Mal shoved his hands in his pockets. "Nothing."

Simon raised his eyebrows. "You wish to remain anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone. Since you asked. If I've got no interest in being merry at Christmas myself, what makes you think I'm going to help killers be merry? If they're as bad off as you say, they can head to those prisons and work camps. At least they won't be fed off my coin."

"Many of them can't go there. And most would choose to die instead."

War memories were hammering at Mal's head now. Faces of those who'd shot his soldiers a moment later and laughed. "So why don't they go ahead and die?" He pushed past Simon and started down the path. "Too many folk like them already."

No answer came, and Mal had walked a good bit past the gate before his anger let up enough for him to glance behind. Simon was still standing by the porch, staring at the papers in his hands with a miserable expression. It was far harder than Mal would have reckoned not to turn around and go back.

But he didn't.

He wandered aimlessly, for how long he couldn't of said for sure. The slushy path led towards town—a town which, 'specially in its poorer parts, always appeared about ready to tumble down if you sneezed on it, or even breathed too hard. Yet now, even folk with no collateral but their own two hands seemed to have scraped up at least a pine bough or two and a ribbon to decorate their flimsy doors. Mal passed a huddle of laborers around a coal brazier. He knew their custom was to be sullen if not outright quarrelsome, and yet they were now trying out harmonies on some rousing Christmas carol. Trying, and apparently not caring how badly they failed.

Any dripping water was fast becoming ice, making paved roads just as perilous as muddy ones. Still, more than a dozen vendors were flocking through the streets, searching for that customer who needed a string of sausages for Christmas dinner, or a cheap gilt jewelry box for a gift, or a bottle of off-world whiskey to keep the relatives happy and drunk, or a folded paper star for the top of their tree. Eventually Mal got sick of the cheer and made his way back to farm country, but regardless…

"Hey, you with the brown coat! Look this way!"

Mal glanced up at the sound of a boy's voice, and immediately got smacked from the other direction by a snowball. Whirling around, he saw a girl laughing fit to burst, with another snowball just prepped. He ducked, but that had the unintended consequence of getting snow all in one ear instead of on his shoulder. Another whacked his back from a third direction. "Ni men dou shi shagua! Go away!"

The only response was two more snowballs. Snarling, Mal took to his heels and got out of range. Glancing up at the sky, he realized with shock that the sun was nearly down. He'd best be getting back before the temperature really started to drop. Despite his hurry, though, it was almost completely dark by the time he arrived on his own, now empty, porch.

Now, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it still existed at all, since the previous owners of Mal's house had torn off most any fancy trappings for a bit of extra coin. It is also a fact that Mal's imagination, when in use, was mostly used to imagine all the ways in which a given scenario could get worse, and used not at all on said fancy trappings. Let it also be kept in mind that Mal had not bestowed one thought on the Operative since a month or so ago, when an old and hardly recognizable image of him had been sent up on the Cortex. And then let anyone explain, if they can, how it could be that Mal, giving the knocker a passing glance as he pulled out his key, saw not a knocker, but the Operative's face.

The Operative's face, not shadowed as everything else in the yard was, but lit with a dismal light, like an engine running on nothing but fumes. It seemed neither angry nor ferocious, but though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That and the odd glow made it horrible, but the horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than part of its own expression.

As Mal looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.

It would be untrue to say he weren't startled, or that he didn't get the same sense he'd gotten at times in the war, of being sighted as a target for a gun. But he pushed that away, unlocked the door, and switched on the dim lighting strips.

He did pause, with a moment's hesitation, before he shut the door, and he did peer cautiously behind it first, as if he half-expected the back of the Operative's head to be sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door except the screws that held the knocker on, so Mal snorted and slammed the door with a bang. Still, as he yanked off his boots and threw his snow-covered coat over a chair, he was privately glad he hadn't waited to put the new lock on the door.

If truth were to be told, Mal would've been glad enough for some of his anger to return now, for it was preferable to the nervous tension that seemed to be settling over him, like he was gearing up for a dash through enemy territory. The wave screen was decidedly blank now, the windows were warped and black with the night, and one of the lighting strips was burned out—and yet, there seemed to be a copy of the Operative's face reflected in every one of them.

"Gorram it," muttered Mal, pacing across the room.

Abruptly, the burned-out lighting strip flickered on with a hiss, then off again. A still-fueled one next to it began flashing. It was with great astonishment, and an inexplicable dread, that Mal saw the whole row of lights begin to dim, then brighten, then crackle and spark. Soon they shone so bright he had to squeeze his eyes shut, but he could still hear the electrical snapping, on and off, on and off, of every lighting strip in the house.

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The lights ceased their flickering all at once, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, around the back of the house, as if some person was dragging a heavy chain over the broken crates Mal had thrown outside. Then it changed to the sound of metal on stone, rattling against the foundations of the side of the house, then to a clang like chain hitting the side of Serenity, and then to a thunder on the wooden stairs just outside his door.

"I don't believe this—" Mal began, though who he was talking to, he didn't know, when through the solid door came the clanking noise, and with it— "You."

The same face, the very same. The Operative in his body armor, without the marks the Reavers had to have left on him, but somehow appearing not a mite better for that. The chain he wore was draped over his shoulders and clasped around his waist. It dragged on the floor like a tail and from it hung guns and bullets, trackers and grenades, fighter ships wrought in steel, and the long sword he'd carried in life.

Mal would have been mighty happy to believe the vision was naught but his mind giving out, but he weren't one to doubt his senses without good reason. He heard the clank of the chain, he saw the body, incorporeal as it was, and felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes. Still, if he hadn't shown fear to the living Operative, he surely weren't going to show it to the dead one—much as it disturbed him to realize a bullet was unlikely to have much effect. "What do you want with me?"

"Much!" The Operative's voice, no doubt about it.

"Who are you?"

"Ask me who I was."

"Yeah, that's kind of what I meant. Who were you, then?"

"In life I was the Operative who was to track River Tam." The Ghost observed him. "I did not expect you to believe in me directly." 

"I ain't had a history of seeing what ain't there." Mal tapped his gun, wishing it would be of use. He weren't sure what harm the Ghost could do, but he hated feeling helpless. "Though I guess I might be lacking in vitamin supplements or some such thing. But I ain't going to go out of my mind with fear at the sight of you, so if that's your aim—"

"It is not."

"Then why is your—spirit—walking the worlds? And why're you coming to me?"

The Ghost fixed him with a gaze. "We are all given eyes and minds and hearts, and we are required to use them—by God, by some law of the universe, whatever it is you believe in. If we forgo the chance to see clearly when we are alive, we are doomed to do so after death. We learn the lessons, but we learn them too late to get any joy from it." The chain rattled on the wooden floor.

"You're shackled up." Mal tried to keep his tone calm. "Why?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life." The Operative's voice went measured and blank. "I made it link by link and yard by yard. I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"

"Yes. I ain't like you—" But Mal choked on the words as his eyes alighted again on the guns. The bullets. The grenades.

The Operative took a ponderous step forward. "Would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It is not as long as mine, but I assure you, it is just as heavy, and may yet be heavier before you are called to wear it."

"Why are you here?" Mal spat. "I want nothing to do with you."

"I cannot tell you all I would. Very little more is left to me. I cannot rest, or stay, or linger anywhere. How it is I am able to appear in a shape you can see, I do not know. I have sat invisible beside you many a day."

This was in no way an agreeable idea. Mal would have shivered and wiped sweat from his forehead, but he didn't intend to give the Ghost the satisfaction.

"I want to give you a chance, Malcolm Reynolds. A hope of escaping my fate."

"Right. I brought a hungry group of Reavers on you and your people, and forced you to hear some news as tore down your happy little illusions, and I'm supposed to believe you want to help me. 'Cause my brain's gone rotten, it has."

"Though I did not like what you told me, I was not ungrateful to learn it. But it is not only you I want to help." The Operative's chain clattered in some wind Mal could not feel. "If you will not listen to me for your own sake, listen for the sake of your crew."

"What're you talking about?"

"They need aid. I cannot show you how, that is not my task. Only others can."

Mal gripped the handle of his gun. "You mean there's more out there like you? That sure makes me feel happy and cheerful."

The Operative's form now seemed to be fading in and out, parts of it solid, others completely invisible. "You will be haunted by three Spirits."

"You call that a chance and hope?"

"Yes."

"I'm thinking I'd rather not."

The Ghost nodded. "Perhaps. But you will not say no. They will come to you, one at a time. You may not trust me, and with good reason, but I think you will go with them. I can promise, at least, that you won't see me again." He moved backwards towards the window, which slowly opened as he drew nearer.

"Well, at least that's something to be glad—" Mal stopped as sounds began pouring through his opening window—strange shrieking and moaning and clattering. Cautiously, he followed the Ghost until he could see outside.

The air was filled with phantoms, shackled like the Operative, shedding their dismal light on the snow. Some had iron safes and locks dangling from their chains, and others were weighed down with bloody or charred bodies. Still others wore the beakers and vials and scalpels of scientists, more yet bore what seemed to be news bulletins and propaganda posters. Many had guns and bombs, a few were chained to other ghosts, none were free.

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together, and the night became as it had been when he had walked home.

Mal slammed the window shut, and examined the door which the Operative's Ghost had entered through. It was locked as before, undisturbed. He tried to say, "Fei hua," but stopped at the first syllable. And, hardly knowing what he did, Mal stumbled to a chair to sit, and fell asleep in an instant.

Chapter Text

"Captain!"

Mal jerked awake. For a moment he didn't recognize his own living room. The crates and wobbling furniture were illuminated by a pearly gleam that no dull strip could hope to produce. Where did it come from? And that voice—he sat up in his chair, blinked, and then started to his feet. "Gao yang zhong de gu yang! Shepherd?"

Book smiled. He'd shed the wounds that had killed him on Haven, and the veil of secrecy he'd always carried seemed to have vanished. But the strangest thing was that from the crown of his head there sprung a bright, clear jet of light, which shone through all the room. Under his arm he carried what looked to be a cap, which was likely meant to dull the glow, should it be needed. "Well, no. I'm not as you knew me."

"Wait." The memory of last night came back to Mal. "Are you one of them Spirits the Operative told me was going to visit?"

"I am."

"Alright, then. If you're not the Shepherd, what are you?"

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past." Book inclined his head.

"Long time past?"

"No. Your past."

Mal frowned. The pearly gleam was, for some reason, muddling his thinking process. "Stick that cap on, will you? The glow's spinning my brain 'round."

Book raised his eyebrows. "I'd advise you to wait and learn what this light means, before you grow so eager to smother it out."

"So we're talking in riddles now," Mal grumbled. "My favorite. I'm right glad to see you looking less corpsified, but if I may ask, what Spirit-ing business brings you here?"

"Your welfare."

Mal couldn't help but think that being woken up before he slept through half the night, by two dead men in a row, weren't exactly the most healthsome thing ever. Book must have heard this somehow, because he replied to it. "Your reclamation, then." He laid a hand on Mal's arm. "Come and walk with me, Captain."

"Whoa, hey. It's way below zero and I'm not even wearing boots—Shepherd!" Mal tugged, but he couldn't seem to get away. "Where are we going? I can't exactly hop through Spirit realms like you can!"

"I think you'll find you can hop through more than you think."

"Hold on, why are we walking towards my wall? What—"

The next second, they passed straight through the wall and found themselves standing on a rough wagon track beside a crooked mossy fence. Mist and night alike had vanished, the sky was a vivid blue, and the sun glittered off heaps of snow and frozen puddles. Distantly, Mal could hear the rattle of a cart, some farmer urging his horses along, and the lowing of a herd.

"Cai bu shi." Mal stared around, eyes wide. "I know where we are. This is Shadow. I—I grew up here."

"Watch it now!" called a laughing voice from over the fence. "Can't have you tumbling off afore you've had time to boast of how good you are!"

Mal whipped around. A young woman in a farm-stained coat and breeches, brown hair bundled carelessly into a knot, was leaning over from the black horse she rode to grab the bridle of the mount next to her—a spotted horse carrying a boy, who was clinging to the reins with more enthusiasm than skill.

"Aw, but Becca! I can ride Lucky just fine. Let me gallop!"

"Lucky's a pony," the young woman scolded him, still chuckling. "Moonbeam here, she's a lot bigger. You don't want to have no broken bones at Christmas dinner, do you?"

"But when Nelson comes, I want to be able to show him I ain't just a kid no more!" the boy protested. "I'm only six months younger than him, but the way he carries on, you'd think it were a hundred."

"Now, Mal, don't you pay no mind to what Nelson thinks." The young woman grinned. "His ma says he's scared of spiders."

"No! Really? Spiders?"

"My hand to God, she said so. Screams and runs away whenever they come near."

The boy wriggled in his saddle. "Can we put one on his Christmas present afore we hand it to him?"

"You do that, and I'll stand by and get a capture of it. We'll show it to his grandkids." The young woman winked. "Now let's turn 'round and head back. There's apples for pie as need peeling."

"Will you get the peel off all in one piece, in a long strip, like last time? 'Cause Ruth says it can't be done."

"I'll show her it can. Bet your last credit on me and you'll come out rich."

Mal gripped the fence, unable to tear his glance from the two, even as they laboriously got their horses turned around and rode off towards one of the distant houses on the horizon, the boy trying constantly to pull ahead, the young woman staying easily beside him.

"Your lip is trembling," Book observed. "And what is that on your cheek?"

"It's naught but—" Mal had to stop and steady his voice. "Naught but a oil smudge. Here, tell me where we're headed. I'll get us there."

"You know the roads around here, then?"

"Know 'em? I could walk 'em blindfolded!"

"Strange, when you've avoided thinking of them for so many years," Book remarked. "Let's go on."

They walked along the wagon track until a crossroads came into view near an icy pond. Another cart rattled by then, this one near overflowing with shouting boys and their parents, who were dedicatedly trying to keep them from tumbling straight onto the road.

"That—" Mal scrambled up on a nearby rock to see better. "That's Julio. He helped me build that house in the tree near the pond." He waved. "Hey, Julio!"

"These are only shadows of things that have been," Book said gently. "They have no consciousness of us." Mal stepped off the rock, feeling like an idiot.

An old man in a wool coat, who'd ridden up on a gray horse in the meantime, halted his mount and saluted the woman driving the wagon. "A merry Christmas to you, Ms. Marquez. Headed to the Reynolds ranch for that famous dinner of theirs?"

"Right all the way. Merry Christmas, Mr. Bryson. Tell your wife I'll bring over some canned peaches next week for her New Year's pie."

"Shiny. She'll be glad to hear that."

Mal's heart leaped at the familiar voices, and he immediately wondered why. What were their 'Merry Christmases' to him? To hell with 'Merry Christmas.' What good had it ever done him?

"What do you say we follow the wagon?" Book started down the track. "I've the feeling they're going someplace good."

"I'd never deny that." Mal went after him.

Ms. Marquez, Julio, and the other folks poured out of the cart and swarmed up to the door, which had been thrown open by a tall, strong woman with a grin big enough to split her face in two. "Welcome, you all! Come right in, we need every soul of you to cut potatoes and peel the apples, 'specially with Becca and Mal gallivanting who knows where."

"No, Ma, we're here!" The young woman, Becca, vaulted over the garden fence as the boy scrambled under it.

"Hey, Mal, I gotta show you this capture I got when Auntie Ana took me to see that Firefly!" Julio dashed over.

Ms. Marquez grabbed him. "Young man, you ain't running off anywhere afore you help Ms. Reynolds with the food."

Mal watched as Julio and his own younger self groaned. "I wish..." He shook his head. "Too late now."

"What's the matter?" Book moved to beside him.

"Nothing. Ain't nothing. Just—saw some kids throwing snowballs earlier. Wouldn't of hurt me to throw one back, that's all."

As everyone swept towards the house in a gleeful crowd, Becca pulled Ms. Marquez aside. "Would you mind doing me a bit of a favor, ma'am?"

"Sure thing. What's up?"

Becca fished in her coat pocket and came up with a small package. "This be my Christmas present for Mal. I bought it yesterday, been carrying it 'round ever since, for he gets into all my hiding places, the rascal. Likely he'll find a way to get in my pockets afore dinner is done, so if you'd hold onto it for me, I'd be much obliged."

"Will do." Ms. Marquez took the package and stuck it in the top of her boot. "Let's go wrangle out a Christmas dinner!"

Book watched the two of them stroll towards the house. "Your sister."

Mal only nodded.

"She had a large heart."

"I'd fight any fool who dared to say otherwise."

"What was that gift? Do you remember?"

"Yeah, I remember." Mal pressed his lips together.

Thoughtfully, Book observed him. "Let us see another Christmas." 

The bright snow and vivid sky of Shadow faded away, and Mal found himself standing by a hill—more like a huge mound of sharp granite rocks, to tell truth—sky a cold gray and freezing wind whipping around him. No one was in sight, but he could hear mutterings from behind several of the larger stones, and someone had left a green pack propped against a stumpy tree.

"Don't see nothing, Alleyne!" Mal turned to see a private he recognized, searcher in one hand and a flare in the other, scrambling up the side of the rock mound. "Far as I can tell, they ain't even gotten orders from the brass, yet. They're just milling around."

A much younger Zoe scooted around from where she'd been sitting between a couple of enormous stones, studying a worn map. "Don't get too comfortable, Estévez. Could be they're looking to fool us."

"Well, they're crazy good actors, then." Estévez stuffed his searcher into the green pack and hefted it up. "O'Meara's down there now. I left him with the com, he'll give us a shout if they go for weapons. Where's the Sergeant? Shouldn't he be back from base by now?"

Zoe sighed. "Thrilling heroics."

"And that's code for what?"

"Code for 'you will be kissing my boots in five seconds.'" Mal's soldier self strolled around the corner, bag over one shoulder and a sack in hand. "What happened to Parata and Gadhavi?"

"I'm right here." Parata ducked out from behind another rock, a tin of oil in her hand. "Just finished cleaning my guns. And Gadhavi's back there too. He stole my kit to try and fix that hole in his pants."

"And I'm gonna do it too!" the unseen Gadhavi called. "You just watch. I mended your shirt, didn't I, Estévez?"

"He did at that." Estévez began adjusting the straps on his pack. "I ain't gotten any powerful urge to kiss your boots just yet, Sergeant."

Mal's soldier self set the bag behind a rock and undid the top of his sack. "Guess who got everyone's Christmas mail."

"Terrific!" Parata grinned. "Anything for me?"

"Letter and package." Mal's soldier self tossed them to her. "And you, Estévez, got some oranges. Hope you see clear to sharing 'em. O'Meara, he got two cards, for when he comes back up."

"Aught for me?" Zoe put her map away.

Mal's soldier self handed her a box and card. "There you go. Gotta say, though, Gadhavi looks to be the luckiest one of us all."

"Huh?" Gadhavi poked his head out from around the rock. "My folks don't celebrate Christmas, remember?"

"I surely do, but you've got a package bigger'n than everyone else's put together." Mal's soldier self dragged out a bundle from the sack. "We ain't gotten mail in a few months, so could be it was delayed."

Gadhavi crawled out as everyone began opening their letters and cards. "Oh, yeah. I know what that is." He smiled and shook his head. "Love my mum."

"What is it, a teddy bear?" Estévez used a knife to open the top of his bag of oranges.

"No." Gadhavi started untying the cords on his bundle. "My family's Hindu. Diwali happened a little while back."

"That's your festival of lights, am I right?" Zoe paused in her unwrapping.

"Yeah. We set tiny clay oil lamps outside our houses and light them. 'Course, no one's going to send me those through the post, but my mum mentioned she'd mail…yup." Gadhavi pulled the cloth aside to reveal a large package of candles. "It's nice of her, even though it's not like we can light them now."

"Well, why not?" Everyone looked at Mal's soldier self. "Normal case, I'd say not, but we've been here weeks, and there's nary a soldier out there who don't know exactly where we are, and the other way 'round. So you want to light a candle or two, you've got my permission."

Gadhavi began poking candles into a patch of dirt to make them stay upright, in a small hollow hidden from the wind. Zoe watched him thoughtfully. "Candles go just fine with Christmas too. My folks always sang 'Silent Night' when we lit 'em in this season."

"Could be that's a proper notion." Mal's soldier self looked at Parata. "You sing that, back home?"

"Yeah, in my family tongue. I'll give it a go." As Gadhavi struck a match, Parata leaned up against a rock and sang softly:

"Mārie te pō, tapu te pō,
Marino, marama,
Ko te Whāea, me te Tama,
Tama tino, tapu rā..."

Book glanced at Mal. "What happened to them? Your soldiers." 

Mal wrapped his arms around himself, though it seemed this spirit-body couldn't feel the cold. "Parata, she got shot in a skirmish six months later. Bled out in front of me. Not the first time I saw up close what a stomach wound does to a person, but it'd never happened to anyone under my command. Gadhavi, he got a knife in the shoulder and the wound took rot, 'bout a year and a half after this. We sent him home but he died later, too."

"Nice singing." Estévez tossed an orange to Parata. "My turn." He started a new verse.

"Noche de paz, noche de amor,
Todo duerme en derredor.
Entre los astros que esparcen su luz…"

"Estévez, he lasted 'til Serenity Valley." Mal watched the circle of candles, all lit now. "Got cholera while he was there. Water was all contaminated. O'Meara, him as was keeping watch down the hill, ended on the wrong end of a gun, but at least he died fast. Their bodies are somewhere in that mass grave dug when it was done. The real shock was that Zoe and I made it out alive." He paused. "Made it out, and I left so much of my kindness dead there with those corpses."

Estévez finished. "Your turn, Sergeant."

"Not a chance from here to Sihnon and back. I'll make them Alliance dogs come up here and shoot us just to shut me up." The others laughed and Gadhavi elbowed Mal's soldier self. 

The sound faded away along with the bleak hill of rocks, and Mal realized they had come out into space, the golden glow of Serenity's engines fast approaching, on, he knew at once, another Christmas. Before a second was over, they'd swooped in right through the hull, and found themselves in the cargo bay.

"Careful with that, oh daffodil of happiness!" Wash was hauling a couple of boxes out of the way as Zoe wrestled with the weight bench. "We don't want Shepherd Book to have to call down a miracle to fix any broken toes. We know just how cross that would make Mal, having to acknowledge God exists and all."

"Jayne was supposed to be helping me with this." Zoe took a pause and a breath. "Even he couldn't move it on his own. Any idea what Inara and River are planning as makes it necessary for us to clear this place out?"

"None at all." Wash stacked his boxes against the wall. "Even my unmatched ability to ask them over and over at random moments seems unable to produce an answer."

"Comin' through!" Jayne shouted from above. "Comin' through with 'Nara's weird-ass string thing!" He thumped down the stairs, carrying a intricately carved hammered dulcimer over his head.

Inara appeared behind him, clutching the sticks she used to play and quivering with terror. "Jayne, please don't drop that!"

"Aw, I got this."

Mal gazed around. "I remember this. Only Christmas we had all together, all nine of us. Afore you and 'Nara left."

Kaylee skipped out from the kitchen, wearing the enormously frilly pink dress she'd acquired for the dance on Persephone, and singing gaily. "Here we go a-wassailin' among the leaves so green, here we come a-wanderin' so fair to be seen…"

Zoe chuckled. "Ain't hardly no leaves out in the black, green or otherwise."

"That's what you think!" Kaylee began tying a sprig of plants to the upper railing with a red ribbon. "Picked this up on our last stop. Mistletoe!"

Jayne set down the hammered dulcimer and grinned lasciviously. "Is it a requirement that ya kiss on the mouth?"

"Now, Jayne." The non-Spirit Book, dressed in an apron, shook his head from the doorway of the kitchen. "What would your mother say?"

Wash finished stacking his boxes and headed straight for the mistletoe. "Um, I'm just going to randomly wander over here and hope for the best." Laughing, Zoe joined him a second later. "Oh, hey! I got the best!" They kissed.

"Will these do as decorations, Kaylee?" Simon emerged from the passenger quarters, carrying five stars made from bright fabric. "I know you were hoping for some."

"Ooh, shiny." Kaylee took the stars and began tying them to the railing near the mistletoe. "Where'd you get the cloth?"

Simon looked embarrassed. "Well, to be honest, some of the clothes I brought with me from Osiris just don't make sense here. If I wore them I'd stick out more than your contact Badger would in a Companion House, so I just cut them up and made them into stars."

"Ya stick out anyway," Jayne grumbled.

River slipped out of the engine room with what appeared to be a tambourine made from scrap metal and wire, and padded down the stairs, beaming around at the rest of the crew. "You are my shattered mirrors. I hold up my hand and see forty-five fingers. Nine goes into forty-five, five times. The math is very beautiful."

Inara clapped her hands. "I expect you may be wondering what River and I are planning. You can see Jayne's brought down my dulcimer, and River has made…" She peered at the tambourine-like object. "…something, so we can play songs. As soon as Shepherd Book has the chance to get the pear pie in the oven, we'll have a Christmas dance." 

Kaylee hopped up and down. "That's great, 'Nara!"

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Wash agreed. 

"I ain't dancin'," Jayne announced.

River held out her tambourine-thing. "Then you can hold this and bang it with a stick. Engage the primary instincts of your cerebellum." 

"Mal ain't gonna like it."

"We have calculated that into the equation," River announced. "We'll introduce an enzyme to the reaction."

"Huh?"

"We're going to send Simon to persuade him it will be alright," Inara translated.

Simon threw up his hands. "Why is it that these days it's suddenly become my job to talk Mal into everything?"

Zoe leaned against the weight bench. "Ever since you convinced him that taking on that cargo of mechanical egg beaters was a good business venture, and we made enough money off 'em to buy two new synchronizers."

"Yeah," Wash added. "Between that and the Ariel heist, he's got you in his mind as the person who comes up with weird ideas that actually work."

The non-Spirit Book chuckled. "If you'd ever tried bake a cake that called for stiff egg whites, and you had nothing but a fork, you'd understand the appeal of a good egg beater."

"Alright, alright, I'll go talk to him." Simon headed towards the bridge as River launched into a lecture explaining to Jayne just how beating her tambourine-thing was related, psychologically speaking, to brawling over a woman.

Mal and the Spirit-Book followed Simon up the stairs, and Mal saw his old self near the pilot's chair, rereading a worn letter and holding a small box in his other hand. He glanced up, expression skeptical. "What's with the racket down there?"

"Conspiracy to mutiny. Your crew is defying your edict to be focused and stoic."

"That so?"

"I'm afraid it's a lost cause." Simon said seriously. "You'll have to keelhaul everyone. They're a disgrace to the name of smuggling."

Mal's previous self groaned. "Are you turning traitor too?"

"Oh, most likely. Revolt does wonders for one's white blood cell count." Simon gestured at the letter in Mal's hands. "I don't mean to interrupt, if that's from family and you'd prefer to read it by yourself."

"It's old," Mal shrugged. "Basically memorized it anyway."

Simon peered at the box, then looked surprised. "That's for a harmonica, isn't it? I had no idea you played. Your revolting crew could use your skills. I have faith in Inara's dulcimer playing, but, I must admit, very little in Jayne's metal-banging abilities. Well, on-rhythm metal-banging abilities."

"So it's music, is it?"

"Yes. In fact, as this ship's medic, it's my carefully considered advice that you come join us, even if you don't play. There's mistletoe out there, and Jayne is also out there, and I'm highly concerned for the health of all our crew's female members." Simon mock-considered. "Except Zoe. She knows the location of all his principle arteries and has a knife with which to cut them."

Mal's previous self made a face. "Mistletoe. Kaylee's idea, I bet."

"My guess is that it's located in other strategic doorways all over Serenity. You'll have to take care of yourself. As Wash would remind you, kissing girls makes you sleepy."

"Ain't no one on this ship ever going to forget that? Or at least pretend to?"

"I'm afraid not." Simon leaned against the wall. "It was far too amusing."

"I was the victim there. Saffron drugged me!" Mal's previous self protested. "And then tried to kill us all. How is that funny?"

"If we didn't laugh at people who were trying to kill us, we'd laugh a lot less," Simon pointed out. "Still, I'll admit the lovely Mrs. Reynolds isn't exactly my favorite person. 'Her skin was white as leprosy, the Nightmare Life-In-Death was she, who thicks man's blood with cold.'As Coleridge might say."

"Who's Coleridge?"

"An Earth-That-Was poet. I was quoting The Rime of the Ancient Mariner—that's my favorite of his."

"Sounds right freakish, it does." Mal's previous self raised an eyebrow.

"I gave a copy to a girl I liked on Valentine's Day and she refused to have anything to do with me after that." Simon sighed. "River teased me endlessly about it."

"Sisters. They do that."

"You have a sister?"

Mal's previous self hesitated a moment. "Had."

"Oh." Simon winced in sympathy. "I'm sorry."

"Me too." Mal's previous self glanced at the box in his hand. "It was from her, actually. The harmonica. Was a Christmas gift."

"I see. Do you ever play it? Now, I mean."

"No."

Simon looked thoughtful. "I didn't know your sister, so perhaps I'm wrong, but—she might like it if you did."

"Don't do that." Mal's previous self gripped his letter and glared. "Don't use Becca to make me feel guilty. Is that why they sent you up, to get me to come down and pretend I forgot—"

"No. That wasn't what I intended, and you can stay up here all night if you'd like. I might not feel like celebrating either, in your place. But I'm certainly not going to leave you sitting alone, not if you've lost a sister and she's so much in your thoughts."

"Why?"

"Because if I lost River, I'd feel I should be ashamed of enjoying myself on Christmas while she was dead and couldn't," Simon said matter-of-factly. "And I'd like to have someone remind me that being happy was still alright."

"Is it?" Mal's previous self glanced down at his letter. "Even when folk are murdered in ways painful beyond imagining? What reason do we have for merry Christmas then?"

"I do ask myself that. And if River died, I'll admit, I'd want to dedicate my every waking second to tracking down her murderers, and once I had them, I'd want to take my scalpel and remove all their internal organs, one at a time, while they watched and screamed. But that's not what I'd actually do, because if I were to die, that's not how I'd want River to spend her life."

"What would you do, then?"

Simon took a breath and let it out. "I'd stay here. I'd take care of this crew, and try to keep you all alive and walking and talking, because you'd be the closest thing to family I'd have."

Mal's previous self was silent for a few moments. "You make a point." He paused. "Are you really going to sit up here with me if I don't come down?"

"Yes."

"And what are you going to do if that ain't a deterrent?"

"Sorry?"

"Way I see it, if I go down there I'll have to listen to Jayne hit metal together 'til everyone's ears bleed, and yell at Zoe and Wash to keep 'em from camping out under that gorram mistletoe, and try to make sense of your sister's chatter and have her poke me when I can't, and try not to slip up and call Kaylee's dress a layer of cake, even though it is, and end up fighting with 'Nara 'cause, well, I always fight with 'Nara, and probably listen to the Shepherd babble 'bout the Star of Bethlehem and whatnot. Rather stay up here with you and cope with quotes from that Coleridge poet-person."

Simon observed him carefully. "I think you have conjunctivitis."

"What?" Mal's previous self put a hand to his eye. "No, I don't."

"Yes, you do. Conjunctivitis. Overuse of the word 'and.'"

"Oh." Mal's previous self groaned. "'Cause 'and' is a conjunction. Remind me to tell everyone there is now an embargo against bad wordplay on this boat."

"I'm sure that preposition will earn you great renown."

"Preposition. Noun. No more puns, and that's an order."

"Is there a punishment if I don't stop?" Simon grinned.

"Shut up! Fine. I'll come down. I supposed I'd better supervise the dulcimers and metal-banging anyway."

"Thank goodness for that."

When they'd all gathered in the cargo bay, River poked and prodded until Zoe, Wash, Book, Kaylee, and Simon had joined her in the middle of the cleared space. Inara raised her dulcimer sticks, Mal put the harmonica to his mouth, Jayne flourished the tambourine-thing, and away they all went.

Though River called out dancing instructions, they often contained words like "hydrogen" "radium" and "pirouette" all of which were equally incomprehensible to the dancers, so everyone was always ending up in the wrong place, running into each other, and roaring with laughter over it. Book danced the women's part several times for a joke, winking at Jayne. Inara tapped away on the dulcimer, holding down the rhythm despite it all, and beaming with enough sunlight to fill the whole room. Simon kept ending up three steps ahead of the beat, and pretended to run in terror from the mistletoe. Kaylee added impromptu spins wherever she could, but with her combat boots and long skirt always seemed to be slipping and tumbling into someone's arms.

Mal's previous self tried his best to keep from smiling, but gave up the fight five minutes in, and improvised whenever he couldn't remember the right notes. Wash imitated the sounds of his various piloting maneuvers whenever he had to execute a particularly complicated dance move, and always seeming to find his way back to Zoe, who rolled her eyes and kissed him every time. Jayne, who seemed to have taken River's lecture very much to heart, banged away on the tambourine-thing with great cheer.

During this whole time, the current Mal had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He commented on everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything. It was not until the crew was too exhausted to dance anymore and went to the kitchen to eat, that he remembered the Spirit-Book who stood beside him, looking on, while the light upon his head burned very clear.

"A small matter," the Spirit-Book remarked, "to make us so full of gratitude."

"Small!" echoed Mal.

"Why? Is it not? We did not spend or earn a credit for that music and dancing."

"But it ain't that. You know it ain't. Say it's true, that all the power lay in naught but the words and looks we gave each other. The happiness we got from that was as great as if it'd cost us thousands." He stopped.

"What's the matter?" the Spirit-Book asked.

"Nothing."

"Something, I think?"

"No." Mal turned away. "No. But Wash waved me earlier. I'd not mind being able to say a word or two to him now. That's all."

It seemed that something shifted, but for a moment Mal couldn't tell what. Then he realized that, though they still stood in Serenity's cargo bay, some equipment was more worn, and some newer, as if it had been replaced. The sounds of laughter from the kitchen had dropped to a more subdued, though still cheerful, chatter.

"We got that staircase fixed after Miranda." Mal glanced about him. "And the floor got scratched up like this when we crashed on Mr. Universe's moon. This is…first Christmas after we lost you on Haven. That was in August. But Wash was still…" The thump of combat boots sounded from above, and Kaylee and River crossed by the upper railings. Mal and the Spirit-Book climbed the stairs as the mechanic, who had a paper snowman stuck on her coveralls, pinned a paper snowflake into her friend's braided hair.

Inara came out of her shuttle as they drew near its door, smiling through a veil of tiredness. "Hello, you two. I've been smelling your raisin-apricot bread. My guess is that it will be delicious."

"Not as good as Shepherd Book's. But we did our darndest." Kaylee hugged Inara. "Merry Christmas. I'm glad you're here."

"I'm glad to be here."

Abruptly, River dashed forward and flung her arms around the two women, clutching them tight. "Miss you."

Kaylee crinkled her brow. "Sweetie, we ain't gone nowhere."

"No, but I will be going." River's voice was muffled from where her face was buried in Kaylee's coveralls. "Soon."

"What do you mean?" Inara frowned.

River drew back. "I'm flying far. The Arctic Tern, from Earth-That-Was, traveled from one pole to the other, every year. Spent most of its life in the air. Just like us. But I'm not the Arctic Tern." She shook her head. "I'm the albatross. I have to speak. Planet full of dead, and more wrongs to come. They scorch my brain to ash unless I speak."

"But you can't leave us." Kaylee sounded ready to cry.

"I did the math." River touched her cheek gently. "Death is clinging to my skin. I'm going to carry it far away from you. Give you a chance. Give you a chance, and tell my truth to those who would shut their ears. But not yet." She turned and walked towards the bridge, smiling softly. "I'm here now."

"And you'll write." Inara leaned forward. "Won't you?"

River paused by the stairs. "I will write for two Christmases. Then you will have to know that I would write, if I could." She vanished.

Inara passed a hand over her eyes. "If she said what I think she said just then—don't tell Simon. He doesn't need to know."

"Mayhap she means somethin' different. But if not, Captain'll help him get through it. I know he will." Kaylee paused. "'Nara, you—you ain't goin' back to the Companion House, are you? You're stayin' with us."

"No, I'm not going back to the Companion House. But I'm not sure how long…" Inara trailed off. "Kaylee, I love—I love you all. So very much. But I don't want to live the rest of my life on the run. Still, it broke my heart to leave last time..."

Kaylee took a breath and looked straight at her. "If you go, can I go with you?"

"What?" Inara seemed stunned. "This ship is your home."

"Yeah, but you—" Kaylee stopped and glanced around. "'Nara, can we go to your shuttle for a bit?"

"Of course." Clearly puzzled, Inara led the way to her shuttle, and the two disappeared. A moment later, Zoe and Jayne emerged from the kitchen.

"Just tellin' ya," Jayne was saying as he bit into an apple. "You and Wash need help gettin' on your feet again, all ya gotta do is ask."

"We'll be alright."

"Look. I know ya ain't keen on leavin' this ship. But if ya ever take it in your mind to do so…when I told Ma what happened to Wash, she said you two would be more'n welcome in her town for a bit. It ain't rich there, but it's safe, and another pair of hands is always needed."

"Thanks, Jayne. But I ain't leaving Serenity 'til she ain't flying no more."

"Keep it in mind." Jayne stumped off towards his bunk, throwing the apple's core towards the trash receptacle on his way.

Simon came out of the infirmary as he passed, then drew near Zoe. "I'm so sorry, but I can't do much without better pain medication. Hopefully we'll land on a planet with decent supplies for sale soon."

"It's fine. My Christmas present will keep for a bit. I'll go in and sit with him."

"He's asleep. He won't know you're there."

"And you ain't sat with the Captain for three days when he was out with a concussion?"

"Your point is taken."

Zoe leaned on the railing. "Fact is, there's something I'll need you to be doing, tomorrow or the day after."

"What's that?" Simon looked at her curiously.

"Give me a physical." Zoe gripped the railing. "I'm thinking I might—be going to have a baby."

Simon's eyes widened. "You think you're pregnant? That's amazing! Or—is it?"

"Mite terrifying, to tell truth. This ain't exactly how I'd have planned for it to happen. But before you feel you've got to ask awkward doctor questions, yes, I want this child. So you just do your best to help me be sure it's healthy."

"Oh. Alright." Simon looked relieved. "I'm afraid to say there probably will be a lot of other awkward doctor questions regardless. Tomorrow, you said?"

"That's right." Zoe headed for the infirmary. "Merry Christmas, Doctor."

"Merry Christmas." Simon watched her go, then stood gazing out over the cargo bay.

Mal half-smiled. "That baby was Rose. Poor Zoe had six fussing folk in her delivery room, and River only not there 'cause she knew what was happening in any case. Fact is, I reckon Zoe was the calmest of us all. Nothing much shakes her, but most everyone else—" He shook his head. "Childbirth is kuang-zhe de."

A door thumped shut, and Mal saw his previous self, more worn than the year before, come over and stand by Simon. "How's Wash?"

"Asleep. He's in less pain that way." Simon sighed. "Recovery from injuries like this is measured in years. At least now we can be fairly sure he'll live to get better. Zoe's in there with him."

"And how're you?"

"Fine."

Mal's previous self studied Simon closely. "No, you ain't."

"It's idiotic. Just—no one could have saved his leg or arm, but I keep thinking perhaps I could have contained the infections."

"Simon, you got shot in the stomach. You hardly pulled through yourself."

The current Mal dug his nails into the palm of his hand. "Funny. It had occurred to me I might die, but never that he might. I was ready for one, but surely not the other. And then when he and Kaylee didn't end up bedding down like we all thought they would—well."

"Well what?" the Spirit-Book asked.

"Ain't no details a preacher's interested in. The 'verse was harsh, Simon had some real mercy about him and was mighty easy on the eyes. That's the big picture."

"And is that all?"

"You saying that ain't enough? Mercy like that, mercy as will last even through the sight of nightmares come true? You meet that once a decade if you meet it at all." Mal shook his head. "It were more than enough, it were a miracle. While it lasted."

Simon was still speaking to his previous self. "—doesn't seem to stop me from feeling guilty."

"Know how that is, right enough." The Mal in the memory sighed and sat on the stairs to the bridge. "Felt that way myself, I have. Used to be, I was sure a man was responsible for what he did, nothing more. But when folk came under my command and I had to watch 'em die, I started to wonder how responsible I was for what I didn't do."

Simon joined him. "How do you mean?"

"There ain't truly time to think while you're fighting, but afterwards, waiting for the next skirmish or the next bomb to drop, I'd just go over it in my head. Again and again. Someone would've died, or been hurt, and I'd imagine ten different ways I could've stopped it. Mayhap they'd have worked, mayhap not, but I'd go crazy thinking if-only. Never during the battles, just after, but there's a lot of waiting in war."

"So I've heard."

"I hate waiting now, 'specially waiting in quiet. Not that I liked it as a kid or nothing. But when there ain't noise outside my brain, the noise inside gets so loud I half think it's real." The Mal in the memory twisted his mouth. "Funny, but even though I don't get bad dreams much, I hate trying to fall asleep. More waiting, more asking myself who I could've saved, if I'd just done things a mite different."

"Mal." Simon paused a moment, with the air of a man about to jump off a rather high cliff. "If that's the case, do you think it would help if I slept with you? In your room, I mean."

"Thought...you'd be worried 'bout not being right near River."

"I am to some extend, but she's been improving so much, and I think she might actually prefer it if I wasn't breathing down her neck all the time. And if I can help you, then I want to, you shouldn't have to hate falling asleep of all things, and I wouldn't take up much space, all it takes is a few books to make me feel at home, but if—"

"Whoa, hold up." The Mal in the memory covered Simon's hand with his. "Give a man a chance to say yes, will you? And forget the foolery 'bout not taking up space. Bring in what books you want."

Simon smiled then, obviously reassured. "At least you won't have to cope with the volume of illustrated Coleridge I had on Osiris. It was the size and weight of a paving stone, so I chose not to bring it with me, and I didn't think I'd miss it. After all, I can read the poems on the Cortex, they're public domain. But I do, of all the odd items."

"I ain't surprised. If I cared for books the way you do, that'd be one I'd choose to miss. That poem, the albatross one, it's something else."

"You read it?"

"That looks to be your jaw on the floor, might want to pick it up." The Mal in the memory rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I read it. Old Coleridge, he talks a mite like River in a flowery mood. No waste of time, though. There's some things as are hard to put into words, mayhap that's why we have poets, to do it for us."

"I'd never exactly thought of that, but it makes sense." Simon peered at him. "Was there something you thought, that he managed to put into words?"

"Yeah, a bit. He ain't speaking of war, but there were times in Serenity Valley..." The Mal in the memory stopped, then quoted, in a low voice.

"An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high,
But oh, more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye.
Seven days, seven nights I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die."

He looked away. "I hated myself for living, at first. Then turned to hating the Alliance more than ever, though I had to keep it under wraps. There's times when I imagine killing every one of 'em, or giving 'em a few rounds in Niska's torture chamber, though in a sane mood I don't wish that on anyone."

"I hope, even if you had the chance, you never would." Simon ran a thumb over the back of Mal's hand. "Not for their sake. I couldn't care less if those who give the orders in the Alliance live or perish, after what they did to River and to Miranda. But for your sake. Their dying might not lead to grief, but it wouldn't lead to happiness either, and part of what separates us from the Alliance is whether or not we choose to murder the people we hate. They might deserve to die. But you don't deserve to kill them."

"I'll try and keep that in mind."

"Besides, there's more in that poem that reminds me of Serenity—this ship, I mean—than just the parts about death."

"Really? Which?"

"I'll see if I can remember. I think I do. Yes." Simon tilted his head to one side.

"But soon there breathed a wind on me,
Nor sound nor motion made,
Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring—
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too,
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—
On me alone it blew."

They were silent for several moments. Finally Mal's previous self commented. "Ain't no breeze on Serenity 'cept when Kaylee's had to turn on the vents while she's welding."

"It's a metaphor! Symbolically speaking, the wind—oh." Simon smacked his forehead when he saw Mal laughing. "Stop taking advantage of my assumption that you don't understand basic literary devices."

"I understand the gorram metaphor, and I give it the Captain Reynolds stamp of approval. Very official and all. Nice memorizing, too. Thought your brain was all taken up with blood types and where everybody's organs go."

"The bodily organs on this particular crew tend to be in the wrong places more often than not, and there's times where you personally have had more blood on you than inside you. I'm exaggerating, yes, but only slightly."

"Lucky we've got you to keep us flying." The Mal in the memory appeared to be considering, then spoke again. "Listen. There's something I'd like to—you recollect how I grew up on Shadow?"

"Of course."

"It's black rock now, no one can set foot there, and my folks are gone. But I keep wishing I had more family to bring you." He paused. "Keep thinking on my sister Becca, her as gave me the harmonica. 'Course, you'll never know her, but she'd of welcomed you right off, treated you like a brother. And I want to give you this." He pulled out the harmonica, which had gotten fairly tarnished over the years, and held it out.

"Really?" Simon stared. "Your sister's—are you sure?"

"Yeah. I've thought. Ain't no one better to have it."

Simon reached over, expression full of tenderness, and the current Mal turned his eyes away. He knew it'd been quite a time before the two of them had stopped their kissing, and for some reason it felt wrong to watch. "I was right, too. Ain't no one better. Never would have been anyone better, still isn't."

The Book-Spirit moved closer. "You loved him."

"It don't matter now." Mal raised his eyes, and saw the walls of Serenity fading.

"My time grows short." The Book-Spirit turned to face him. "One Christmas more, I think."

Blinking, Mal found himself on Serenity again, this time up on the bridge. But he could no longer feel the subtle hum of the engines. "We're—this is way later. When we were grounded. I remember—" He whirled on Book. "I don't want to see this." Book merely looked at him.

"Ta-shi suo-you di-yu de biao-zi de ma," spat a furious, bitter voice. Despite wanting nothing more than to shut it all out, Mal saw the man in the pilot's chair. Again, it was himself, eyes pinned to the Cortex screen, which was broadcasting news of a battle somewhere. A battle, which it seemed, the New Independents were losing. Gunshots and bomb explosions from the fight, made fuzzy by the ship's slowly dying circuits, sounded across the bridge. The Mal in the pilot's chair clenched his fists and swore again.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. "Mal?" Simon was standing in the doorway, appearing far older and far more drained than the years since should have made him. "Please turn that off. You said on Christmas Day…" He stopped as the Mal in the pilot's chair showed no reaction. "Are you listening to me at all?"

"I'm listening."

"Then will you come down to the kitchen? The food isn't perfect, but it's the best I could do. You promised, just today, we could stop this."

The Mal in the pilot's chair swung around to scowl at him. "Folk look to be dying no matter what the calendar says."

Forgetting the Spirit-Book's presence, Mal glared at his old self. "You did promise. You could have paid heed to him for—" He shut up.

"I just—" Simon held out his hands. "I stayed so I could be with you. There's no one else here. Don't make me eat dinner all alone, please."

Mal's old self had his eyes glued to the screen again. "What was that?" The current Mal cringed.

Simon sagged. "It doesn't matter to you, does it? You care about this—" he waved at the screen, "—a whole lot more than you care about me."

"I care 'bout what more than you?"

"Anger."

The Mal in the memory jerked back around in his chair, clearly incredulous. "This is the way the 'verse works, Simon. No point in denying it. I ain't going to sit around and pretend everything's lovely while folk get slaughtered. Burned and starved—"

"You're afraid of the 'verse." Simon's voice shook, but he steadied it. "Everything you do now, you do to try and protect yourself."

"So? It don't mean I'm changed towards you."

Simon pressed his lips together and looked away.

"Does it?"

"Mal, you might not admit it, but you've stopped believing there can be good in anything or anyone. You don't trust me. If I suggest you don't stare straight at death for even one hour, I can see it in your face. You think I'm your enemy and you hate me." Simon took a deep breath and looked up. "So I'll make this easier on both of us. Whatever—obligation you think you might have to me, I'm releasing you from it."

The Mal in the chair drew back, shocked. "Have I ever asked to be—released?"

"In words, no. Never."

"Then how? When?"

"When my love for you stopped being worth switching off a Cortex screen for." Simon closed his eyes for a moment, face twisted with grief.

Mal stared, outraged, at his former self, whose expression had barely changed. "Will you listen, you jing chang mei yong de idiot? Will you wake up?"

Simon was still speaking. "If we'd never had all this between us, if I was still just your medic, I doubt very much you'd want me now."

"You think that, do you?" The Mal in the chair raised an eyebrow.

"I'd be glad to think otherwise if I could. But I'm not a complete fool. You'd never choose someone Core-bred, someone who despises picking up a gun and has no interest in war, or if you did, you'd regret it." Simon started for the door, then turned back around. "I'll leave, now. I—if somehow it becomes possible, I hope you're happy. I truly do." He left.

"Simon, don't!" Mal got three steps across the bridge before he remembered Simon couldn't hear him. Instead he whirled on the Spirit-Book. "Why in hell are you doing this to me?"

"I cannot help what you see," Book said quietly. "These are but shadows of what has been. That they are what they are, do not blame me."

"Then get me out of here! Take me back!" Mal lunged at Book, but seemed completely unable to get any kind of proper hold on him, while Book seemed undisturbed. Then Mal's hand fell on the cap he'd guessed was meant to cover the light, and, barely knowing what he was doing, he pressed it down on Book's head.

Book dropped beneath the cap, so it suddenly covered his whole form, but though Mal pressed down on it with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed from under it in an unbroken flood on the floor.

Abruptly, he found himself in his own living room, and overcome with exhaustion. He barely managed to get to the rickety chair before he collapsed and sank into a heavy sleep.

Chapter Text

When Mal awoke, he felt very much as if he'd been knocked around the town with a board. At first he wondered just why he was sleeping in his clothes, and in a chair, when he remembered what had passed not long before. With this came the realization that the Operative's Ghost had mentioned three Spirits, and so another might very well be coming soon. Having experienced a goodly number of strange-ish things just in the past twenty-four hours, Mal felt privately that nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would have surprised him very much, and he had only ever heard of a rhinoceros in one of River's long, involved rants on Earth-That-Was creatures.

Being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing. However, after a great time of pacing and muttering and trying not to go utterly dizzy with nerves, Mal noted that his room was again growing illuminated—not from the windows, which were as dark as ever, nor, in fact from any visible source. The light itself was not like Book's pearly glow, but warm and blazing and bright gold. Mal, who weren't completely thinking straight at this point, took a few minutes to wonder if he might be at this moment about to spontaneously combust, without having the consolation of knowing it.

When his head had the chance to clear a mite, though, he began to think that perhaps the light might be coming from some other room, and after a bit of peering around, he traced it to his kitchen. Informing himself firmly that a man who'd faced down bandits, Reavers, and a really, truly angry Inara should have no reason to be scared by light, he moved towards the kitchen door.

"Come in!"

Mal knew that voice, and shoved the door open right quick.

It was his kitchen. There was no doubt about that. But it was now so hung with leafy green and bright blossoms that it might have been the property of a gardener gone moon-brained. Poinsettias and Christmas Cacti sprang from the floor. Trees lit with small candles lined the walls, everything from palm trees to fir trees to bamboo, even a great mango tree in the corner. Gold paper cranes fluttered through the air around Mal's head, and wind chimes sang in some warm breeze. Heaped upon the floor, to form a kind of throne, were sweet raisin breads, sugar-topped custards, round ripe melons, gingerbread, plates of strawberries, flaky pastries, bowls of roasted chestnuts, piles of oranges, rice pudding, vivid red apples, wheels of cheese, and seething bowls of mulled wine, which filled the room with a delicious steam.

And standing on the top of all this, with the easy grace that had always characterized her, was River, and she was smiling.

"Do come in! Time to fall up instead of down, up into the sky." Mal stepped in, too stunned to do otherwise. "I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. Look upon me!"

Her eyes shown with fun and mischief, her face was bright and rosy, she was free of the blood that had covered her body when she died, and her bare feet balanced lightly on the edge of the plate of strawberries. Her long dress was colored in blue and green and black, with patterns that danced and moved with a frequent burst of gold fire. In one hand she carried a bag, which resembled the bag that had held Kaylee's jacks and ball on Serenity, but which seemed to be filled with silver stars.

"You've never see the like of me!" River danced down the great pile of food. "When I died, I started growing into a labyrinth, first little circles, and then bigger and bigger ones. Get Daedalus to give you a magic ball of string, then you'll find your way out!"

"Well, you certainly talk like River, Mistress Ghost-of-Christmas-Present." Mal almost tripped on a melon that had rolled underfoot, but steadied himself. "I hope you know your dress is making my head spin."

River laughed. "Do you not recognize the water-snakes?" She swished her skirt and recited:

"Within the shadow of the ship,
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam, and every track
Was a flash of golden fire."

Now that she mentioned it, Mal did recall some such water-snakes being described in the poem, but chose not to dwell on why River had chosen to dress herself so. "Look. When that Spirit-Book came, I didn't have no choice where I went. But I—mayhap I learned a thing or two. Not sure yet. But if you've got aught to teach me, go ahead with it, and I'll try to pay mind."

River's eyes twinkled. "Think of all the neural connections in our brains. Eighty-six billion by the latest estimate, times nine crew members, seven hundred and seventy four billion. More neural connections in your crew's brains than there are stars in the Milky Way. Touch my dress!"

Mal did so, and promptly found himself whisked away from the wildly decorated kitchen. In a moment, he and River stood on the streets of the town, in a clear, biting Christmas morning. Folk were outside all over, scraping snow off their steps and off the rough pavements, some upon on ladders knocking the ice off their windows.

"So tell me!" Yasamin, who supervised engine welders at a nearby plant, waved her shovel in the air. "Am I going to taste your miracle custard this Christmas, or am I not?"

"You surely are!" Quang the carpenter, up on his roof, sent a load of snow sliding off his half-broken chimney. "Hell, when I'm dead I'll drag myself out of the grave and make a few batches, this time of the year."

"I hate to put a downer on your kind sentiment, but that's really creepy." Josefina the coat seller chuckled, chipping away at the ice on her steps. "Teach your son to do it. Spare us your freakish ghost custard."

"My son? Cook?" Quang snorted. "I'm letting him stick to carpentry. He made soup and we used it for glue."

"Come on, be fair." Josefina kicked some loose ice into a snowdrift. "I'm not entirely sure the protein that so-called traveling salesman sold him was less than twenty percent horse saliva."

Yasamin rolled her eyes as she flung a shovelful of snow over her fence. "Never trust a man who flies in a Capissen-38. Rule of mine, hasn't failed yet."

"Look at this rubbish! It's gone and fallen right to pieces!" Zuberi, two houses over, roared in fury and threw a lock, which Mal recognized as very much like his broken one, into the muddy street. "I am going to murder that locksmith, you just watch!" He strode out to the sidewalk, fists clenched.

River reached into her bag and flung a handful of the silver stars into Zuberi's face. He stopped and blinked, looking thoughtful. "Eh. Maybe not today. He's got that terror of a father-in-law there visiting, wouldn't want to get him in that kind of hot water. Time enough later."

"Yeah, don't quarrel on Christmas," Yasamin agreed. "Or folk will start to mistake you for Diogenes. Who hasn't even closed his bookshop today, if truth's known. He's always determined to eliminate a little joy in the worlds, even if it's just his own."

"He's like a really twisted masochist. He gets happiness out of being miserable." Zuberi strolled back to his house and went back to knocking icicles off the eaves. "Anyone coming to your house, Josefina?"

Quang pointed from where he was now straddling his roof's peak. "What he wants to know is, is that carrot farmer who lives west going to come and try to pay court to you? That's what he's really wondering."

"Yeah." Yasamin grinned, reaching for her boot, which had gotten stuck in a drift. "He's wishing he had an invite to your Christmas dinner, where he could stare at your enchanting dimples and glorious hair for hours and hours."

Zuberi looked as if he wished the ground would open up and eat him. "It was just a question!"

Josefina hopped off her steps and walked towards her shed. "Carrot farmer's not coming, seeing as all carrot farmer can talk about is carrots, and carrots, when not dug up and on your plate, are very boring."

A boy of about thirteen dashed around the corner, clutching a covered basket. A moment later, Lela the wood carver came racing after him, brandishing her awl. "You ben tian-sheng de yil-dui-rou! If you don't drop that basket right now, I'll stab your eyes out!"

River tossed a double handful of silver stars across the pair, and both immediately slid to a halt. The boy handed the basket over, contrite. "Sorry, ma'am. Bad joke."

Lela took the basket. "Well, nothing's damaged, so no harm done, I suppose. Get on home to your ma."

Mal eyed the bag of silver stars incredulously. "What in the name of Kaylee's best pliers is in there?"

"Guess." River twirled in a circle, not seeming to be affected by the perilous ice. "Flip a frown upside down and it turns to a smile. Humans are a rare animal, to show their teeth in affection and not in threat."

"Are those star things just for anyone?" 

"For those who are poor, most."

"Why for the poor most?" 

"Because they need them most." She beckoned Mal onwards. "But perhaps poverty is relative. Shall we see?"

"See—" Mal looked around and saw, on three sides of him, vast rice fields. On the fourth side were several ramshackle wood houses. "Where are we? I ain't never seen this place."

"But you could have. And perhaps you should have, long ago."

Before Mal could ask what she meant, he heard rapid and familiar footsteps from his right. Zoe came into view, a box under one arm and mud up to her knees. "I'm back!" she called, heading for the nearest house. "Happy Christmas morning!"

The door flew open with a bang, and Rose and Benjamin tumbled out. "Momma, you'll just love it!" Rose ran up to grab Zoe's free hand. "Me and Ben and Dad and Lumi, we got up extra early—"

"We made the biggest, best breakfast!" Benjamin interrupted. "I watched Lumi so she didn't knock everything over, and I set the table!"

"And I cracked all the eggs!" Rose jumped up and down. "Every single one, all by myself. And then Dad showed me his trick for getting the eggshells out if they fall in, and I did that too!"

Benjamin ran back towards the steps. "Come see! We got the special fruit bread, and the sausages, and even a little bit of hot chocolate!"

"It smells so good in there!" Rose tugged Zoe along. "It smells like rich lady's perfume!"

Zoe laughed. "Does it now?"

"Well, it smells like the perfume I'd have if I was a rich lady."

Wash appeared at the door, somehow managing to stay upright despite his cane and the fact that Lumi was yanking on the cuff of his pant leg. "Well, would you look at that. I'm sitting in there thinking, it'd only take my wife to make this just perfect. And here she is. I think maybe I have a personal saint. Or a guardian spirit. Yeah, spirit. That's classier."

River's expression went soft and tender. "Lumi. Do you know why they named her that?"

"No." Mal watched as Zoe bestowed kisses on her children and husband. "I reckoned they just thought it was pretty."

"There is an Earth-That-Was language called Albanian. Lumi is a word from that language. It means river."

"They named her for you." Mal shifted, uncomfortable. How had he not known that? Well, mayhap he didn't have no business knowing.

"Yes, it is your business." Trust River to read his thoughts even more easily, with Ghost-of-Christmas-Present-type powers. "They're your crew."

"I lost my ship, River, I ain't got a crew no more."

"They lost Serenity too. It was their home as much as yours. They needed you even more. The only reason they left is because you weren't there."

Mal stuck his hands in his pockets. "Think I preferred you talking gibberish."

"What in box?" Lumi poked at Zoe's box. "See?"

"Better take it inside first." The Washburnes swept in through the narrow door with River and Mal invisible behind them. Zoe stopped a few steps in, gazing at the loaded table with delight. "Ain't you all done just splendid. Believe I've got just the thing to round it off." She set the box on a chair and pulled off the top.

"Grapefruit!" Wash leaned forward to pick one up. "Real grapefruit. Christmas has come early! Oh, wait, it is Christmas."

"Dad, you're so silly." Benjamin rolled his eyes.

Zoe hugged him and Rose around the shoulders. "It was Auntie Kaylee who first served me grapefruit on Christmas. Remember when she and Auntie Inara visited with those raspberries?"

"I remember. You liked them too." Rose took a grapefruit and examined it. "Momma, when I grow up, I'm going to become a doctor and rescue folk, just like I rescued Gezim when he broke his ankle, and then I'll have coin to buy you all the raspberries you want. You can have them every day."

"I'll get a knife to cut this glorious symbolic bacon you've brought home." Wash took a step towards the kitchen, but winced and had to clutch at the table. Zoe was there in a flash, holding him up.

"You been on your feet since early morning, ain't you?"

"Yeah. I'm okay, though."

"Sit yourself down." Zoe helped him to a chair. "I'll get the knife."

"Check on the eggs while you're at it," Wash called after her. "I don't think they're done yet, but just make sure."

Benjamin hoisted himself onto a chair. Rose helped Lumi do the same, but seemed too excited to sit herself. Zoe returned a minute later, bearing the knife in one hand and a battered crate under the other arm. "Them eggs ain't near done yet, and they might not be for a spell. Oven was out of good fuel cells. I had to stick in a few cheap ones." The Washburne kids groaned. "However, that means now's a good time to see what's in this." She held up the crate. "Auntie Kaylee waved me a week ago. She said something was coming in the post for us all, and I reckon this is it. Rose, you're on your feet. Go grab me that lever and I'll get this open."

Rose obeyed, and Zoe pried the crate open, pulling out and reading a colorful card first thing. "'Dear Zoe, Wash, Rose, Ben, and Lumi. We hope you'll have a lovely Christmas. Remember you're always welcome to visit. You will be in our thoughts this day.'" Zoe stopped and chuckled. "I'm betting Inara wrote this up. It's her turn of phrase. But yeah, they've all signed it. Inara, Kaylee, Simon, and Jayne. Reckon they all contributed."

"I'd have too," Mal broke in, again forgetting none of them could hear him. "For the kids if for naught else. Why didn't they ask me?"

River gave him her you're-an-idiot face. "Why do you think?"

"Okay. I get the point."

Zoe handed Lumi a package. "Dad'll help you get this open. Don't put no paper in your mouth, now."

Together, Lumi and Wash got the wrapping off, revealing a soft stuffed redbird that spoke of Inara and a pair of metal maracas that Mal would bet anything Kaylee had made herself. Lumi grabbed one and shook it, sending up a mighty racket.

"Can I go next? Can I? Can I?" Benjamin grabbed the edge of the table.

"Can I go next, please," Wash corrected.

"Alright. Can I go next, please?"

"Yes, you can." Zoe pulled out a flat package and gave it to him.

Benjamin ripped off the paper. "It's a book! I know the first letter. It's F. And there's a D, and a J..."

Wash leaned over to see. "Fun With Dick and Jayne. From mercenary to momentary book author. Interesting. Chrysanthemum of joy, do you think we should preview this?"

"I'm sure Inara already did." Zoe pulled out a lumpy package and gave it to Rose. "There you are, sweetie."

Rose unwrapped a bag and unzipped it. "Jing cai!" She pulled out what looked to be a stethoscope. "I saw this in my teacher's book. You listen to folks' hearts with it. And there's a little flashlight and some rolls of bandages in here too!" She grinned. "See? I'll be a doctor, alright."

"Never doubted it for a minute." Wash chuckled. "Now, there's a gift that's got Simon Tam written all over it. You know, even those cheap fuel cells—" He gasped, going suddenly pale.

Zoe bent over him. "How bad is it? Try and breathe."

After a few deep breaths, Wash appeared to recover a bit. "I'll—be okay. Just need a minute." He tried to smile, but none of his family seemed that reassured.

Mal turned to River. "He'll be fine. Won't he? Tell me."

River's eyes went unfocused, as if she was looking through and not at the Washburne family. "I see a vacant seat at the table, and a cane without an owner, carefully preserved. I see the demons gnawing at his heart, creeping through his veins—yes, he will die."

"No. He can't. That's just plain unfair! After all they've gone through—gorram it, there has to be some chance for him."

"If these shadows around him do not lift, no other Ghost of Christmas Present will find him here." River cocked her head to one side, imitating Mal's accent faultlessly. "So why don't he go ahead and die? Too many folk like him already."

"Wash ain't who I meant by that!" Mal exploded. "He ain't no monster. I was talking of Alliance soldiers, them as shot you full of lead! Them as hurt us all!"

"I shot people full of lead. So did you, yes? Not toy soldiers, not made of tin and painted. When you knock them over they shatter and cry." River made a noise like a bomber plane swooping down, then an eerie sound like a child wailing. "The true measure of a civilization is how it deals with those who are helpless."

"Well, I never made no claim to be civilized, and they sure as hell ain't helpless."

"Are they not? You see what you wish to see."

"Mayhap I ain't wishful to see otherwise."

"Mal," River said gently. "You say there are too many. But unless you are a stone in the black, all surrounded by dead air, you should not speak until you discover just who there are too many of. Can you truly judge who deserves kindness and who does not? Perhaps in the sight of the truly impartial you and I are less fit to live than millions like Wash and those injured whom you scorn."

Try as he might, Mal found he could not quite answer this, so instead he turned back to watch the table, where Zoe was bringing out the eggs. She set them down, took a seat, and raised her cup. "Merry Christmas to us all! With luck, we'll do well this year." The Washburnes drank, Benjamin spilling some in his eagerness.

"We're leaves on the wind!" Wash added, laughing, though he still appeared somewhat pale. "Just watch how we soar!"

As if those words had been some cue, River laid a hand on Mal's arm, and he felt himself whisked away from the house and the happy faces. He had a momentary impression of silent space and faraway suns, and then stumbled on the dust of some cold plain, dotted with sagebrush. A train rattled in the distance, barely visible by the fiery red of what sunset still showed over high, jagged rocks.

"Where are we?"

"Do you not know it?" River waved at the train tracks. "You were on that train once, I think. A place for miners, who labor in the earth. Where the air deep belowground makes your bones creak."

"Oh, right. Miners had Bowden's Malady. We took meds for that off the train for Niska. May he rot in Book's special hell."

River pointed to a few lights off to the left. "They know me. They know Christmas Present. Listen!"

Singing, not so much skillful as joyous, rang through the air. Mal also thought he heard the sound of some instrument, clear, sweet tones. "What're those? Bells?"

"Bowden's Drums. They take the broken mining engines and hammer them until you get a different tone in every place."

Mal listened. The instruments sounded more like chimes than old metal. "Broken engines make music like that?"

"Indeed they do." River twirled, swishing her dress. "They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, and they shall learn war no more. So said the Prophet Isaiah." She bowed with a flourish. "They die in the mine landslides, die from the creaking bones, but the drums remain. You can kill a man, but not a song when it's sung all through the 'verse."

The sunset and chiming vanished in a flash, and Mal, blinking, saw that he'd landed nose to nose with a rather prickly and fresh-sap-smelling Christmas tree. Hastily backing up several steps, he saw that the night was lit to near-day by torches and flashlights. A dozen people dressed in mud-stained clothing descended on the tree, carrying everything from origami dragons to strings of popcorn, and began to deck it out. Nearby, somebody was ladling hot cider into cups, and her compatriot was serving fried dumplings.

Now that he was away from the tree, Mal could smell the air, and it smelled absolutely vile. "Wait. This is Canton, where the folks had that massive statue of Jayne. No mistaking that smell." He glanced around at the crowd. "Didn't think Magistrate Higgins was the type to give his workers much time off at Christmas. Nor any spare coin for all this foolery."

"He isn't. A few months after we left, the mudders got fed up with being treated like garbage. They formed a union."

"A union? Would've thought he'd of brought in armed folk from off-world to crush a thing like that."

"Oh, he tried." River looked positively devilish. "So they quit working. He lost so much money he had to give in. That was about six years ago. These days, they get decent wages, compensation for injury, protection against arbitrary firing, and a set number of paid days off a year."

"You're joking."

"Not at all. Next year, they're planning to protest for overseers and managers to abide by standards for humane treatment, and disciplined by a neutral committee if they don't." River pointed at the woman and man serving cider and dumplings. "And those two put together a fund for insurance. Everyone contributes, and if a mudder gets sick, they pay for the medicine."

"Shen-sheng de gao-wan." Mal watched as someone climbed up to stick a roughly-made angel on the top of the tree."Jayne'll be tickled to hear this for sure."

The next second, Canton faded out, and they were standing in a yard surrounded by trees. Several young women and a few young men, all dressed in clothing that was clearly meant to reveal more than cover, stood in a circle with lit candles, heads bowed. One of them was reading from a small book.

"'For death and life are one, even as the river and the sea are one. In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond, and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow, your hearts dream of spring. Trust in the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.'"

Mal peered at the reading woman. "She was one of them girls who was after the Shepherd to hold a prayer meeting when we was at Heart of Gold. Emma, was her name. And that there..." He stared at the woman next to her, who was holding the hand of a boy just a bit older than Rose. "That's Petaline, with—hell, that must be Jonah, him as was born that day." He glanced around the circle. "And there's Helen, who got with Jayne, handed him his guns."

"You remember them very well," River remarked.

"Few folk bother remembering a girl's name, when they get it in their minds that she's a whore. Guess I think they deserve better."

Emma was still reading. "'Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountaintop, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.'" She closed the book and looked at Petaline, who knelt on the ground and began lighting a stick of incense.

"We ain't forgotten you, Nandi. You took good care of us, taught us how to hold our ground. The 'verse is tough, but you were always tougher. We hope that wherever you are, it's a gentle place, 'cause you sure as hell deserve a bit of gentleness." She stood back. "Merry Christmas."

Mal dropped his gaze. "Nandi. There you go. Another person I failed."

River put a light hand on his shoulder. "You didn't—"

"Yes, I did. I let her die."

"Everyone dies. We're all born with a map of a graveyard on our foreheads, and every grave will someday be nameless. Our lives are so brief. So brief. But they belong to us." River released him. "Nandi died, but she chose her life knowing early death was possible. You live, but you are choosing your death not knowing that life is possible."

"That sounds mighty ominous."

The Heart of Gold folk drew away and the circle of trees grew dark. Mal was just about to ask what next, when he heard, to his enormous surprise, a sparkly, sunshiny laugh. "Kaylee?" A second later, to his even greater shock, he found himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with River standing smiling by his side, and watching the radiant mechanic with approval and wistfulness.

Kaylee, a sprig of holly pinned to her coveralls and her hair pinned up with new jeweled combs, was giggling gleefully as she dashed from guest to guest, refilling their cups with wine. Jayne, who was sprawled over the sofa, whooped and half-downed his in one gulp. In the loveseat across from him, two elegant ladies who had to be Companions, one dressed in peacock blue silk and the other in white and gold, thanked Kaylee cordially and took dainty sips. Deposited in chairs around the room were two men with rough hands and scarred faces whom Mal knew worked as freelance short-range pilots at the town's ship lot, one with a red cap and the other in a green shirt, who clacked their cups together jovially.

The last guest, who was on the sofa with Jayne, had a braid of black hair coiled and pinned to her head, and a decided air of I'd-shoot-you-if-the-money-was-good. She gave Kaylee a nod and hoisted her drink. "So you went to invite him, you say. How'd he take that?"

"He said Christmas was fei hua! I swear, he did!" Kaylee set the wine bottle on a sideboard, still wiping her eyes with mirth. "And I reckon he believed it too."

"Are we talking about Mal?" Inara stepped into the room with a plate of chocolate truffles.

"That we are." The red-capped pilot saluted her.

Inara set the plate on the table. "More shame to him. Christmas, fei hua indeed. I'm sad to say it, but I really have no patience with him."

"Oh, I have! I'm sorry for the Captain. I couldn't be angry with him, nope, not if I tried." Kaylee slipped an arm around Inara's waist. "'Cause who suffers, by him bein' so cross and stubborn? He does, always. So he's got it in his head to shut himself up in that rickety house, won't come out even to see his old crew. And what's the cost of that? He don't get this good dinner, nor to see all you shiny folks."

"I certainly hope it was a good dinner." Inara chuckled, leaning her head on Kaylee's shoulder. "It seems to be a yearly ritual of ours to light the stove on fire. It might not work at all if it weren't for Kaylee. There are manifold advantages to having a mechanic in the house."

"I'll drink to that." The pilot in the green shirt grinned at Jayne. "What do you say?"

Jayne took another gulp. "I'm startin' to lean towards womenfolk who can plug three bandits in three shots. Sleep more sound at night that way."

"That'd be if you were sleeping," the woman beside him corrected. "'Cause I can testify, any lady as shoots that straight wants a good reward for a day's work."

"Well, now." Jayne sniggered. "Sounds like a marriage of true minds. Can't admit any impediments to that."

Kaylee leaned in to whisper in Inara's ear, and Mal only just caught her words. "See, he does like her. Call me Love Expert Kaylee Frye. Simon's gonna owe me two credits. Too bad he left before he could see I was right."

"I'll call you Lust Expert, at least." Inara shook her head. "I do not believe Jayne actually remembered to use that Shakespeare."

Mal had to pick his jaw up off the floor before he could speak. "They're matchmaking for Jayne now? The man can't even spell the word commitment."

"Perhaps he should practice his spelling, then," River suggested. "So he doesn't end up cheating on three-men-in-three-shots Amrita and getting his throat slit."

"I'm just sayin'," Kaylee went on. "So the Captain goes and takes a dislike to us. Well, by not makin' merry, he's losin' moments that might give him some happiness. I reckon we all are better company than a bolted door and a passel of broken chairs, and I wish mightily he knew it too." She whisked a truffle off the plate and passed it to one of the pilots. "And I'll go back and invite him every year, whether he likes it or not, 'cause I pity him, I do. Mayhap he'll rail at Christmas 'til he dies, but we'll land on his step every year, come hell or high water, and let him know we ain't given up on him yet. I've seen engines all the higher-ups said were broke beyond fixin', and yet after some tinkerin' they ran smooth as could be. The Captain's one as has a spark in him yet, you'll see."

Mal watched his old mechanic pop the truffle into her mouth, suddenly dizzy with gratitude. "Little Kaylee. No power in the 'verse can stop her."

The truffles were gone before you could say three credits apiece, and when everyone finished licking their fingers, one of the pilots proposed a game of blind-man's buff, which he'd always used to play as a boy. Upon which Inara whipped off her shimmering scarf, and tied it over the mercenary Amrita's eyes.

"'Nara ain't done it right," Mal protested. "Scarf's tied crooked. Why, all that lady'd have to do would be crack an eyelid, and she'd see clear as you or I."

River poked him. "Pretty painted lady butterfly. She did it on purpose. It's alligator mating season, just you watch."

And so it seemed to be. Amrita would often pretend to grab at her hosts or the Companions or the pilots, who ran about in a frenzy trying get away from her, but the only one she laid hands on was Jayne. Though he crawled under the table, vaulted over the sofa, and hid behind the door, there she always was a few seconds later, wandering across his path in an imitation of randomness that fooled exactly nobody. Jayne yelled several times that it weren't fair, and in truth it weren't. Still, when Amrita finally managed to corner him behind the window curtains, it's doubtful he wasted any time trying to persuade her of that. Inara's scarf sailed out a few seconds after they vanished, and the rest of them, seeing that waiting for the two to emerge would be unprofitable, tied the scarf on the Companion in peacock blue and continued with their game.

When all had taken a turn with the blindfold, they collapsed, exhausted and laughing, into their various chairs. Amrita and Jayne ducked out at long last, somewhat more disorderly than they had been upon vanishing. Inara reclaimed her now-crumpled scarf with an amused sigh. "Perhaps a more sedentary game is in order. Who here knows how to play Yes and No?" Both Companions and the green-shirted pilot nodded, everyone else shook their heads. "I'll think of something. You all ask me questions, trying figure out what it is."

"What are ya thinkin' of?" Jayne asked promptly.

Inara chuckled. "No, you can only ask questions that I can answer by saying yes or no. Hence the name of the game."

"Sounds shiny," remarked the red-capped pilot. "Is it an animal, that you're thinking of?"

"Yes."

"Is it alive?" the Companion wearing peacock blue inquired.

"Indeed it is."

"Is it cute and fluffy?" Kaylee grinned.

"Not in the least."

"Does it growl lots, then?" Jayne put his feet on the table.

Inara shoved them off. "Yes, it certainly does."

"Mayhap it's a bear," Mal commented to River.

"Do you kill it and eat it?" Amrita asked.

"No."

"Is it a wolf?" The red-capped pilot leaned in.

"Not a wolf."

"Is it a tiger?" The Companion in white and gold quirked her eyebrow.

"No, not a tiger either."

"How 'bout a bull?" put in the green-shirted pilot.

"No."

"Bulls don't growl," Mal snorted. "It's gotta be a bear. Someone guess bear!"

"Does it live anywhere near here?" Kaylee asked.

"Somewhat, yes."

"Mayhap they keep it in that menagerie, next town over," Jayne suggested. "Do they?"

"No."

"Is it dangerous?" The Companion in white and gold crossed her ankles.

"If you startle it, yes."

"Is it a wild horse?" the red-capped pilot asked eagerly.

"No, but you're getting closer."

"Guess bear!" Mal interrupted. "It's a bear, I know it is!"

"Is it a bear?" asked the Companion in peacock blue.

"No."

"Hold it all!" Amrita exclaimed. "I know what it is, right enough."

"What, then?"

"It's your old captain, Malcolm Reynolds!"

Inara clapped. "That it is."

"'Nara," Jayne protested. "Ya done gone and misled us."

"How so?"

"Well, when we asked if it was a bear, ya should of said yes."

General uproarious laughter followed this, and Mal, despite some righteous indignation over the whole proceeding, managed to see the justice of it enough to join in. When Inara had recovered, she plucked her cup from the table and raised it. "He's given us some merriment, and it would be unkind not to drink his health. To Mal, may he see better years than the past ones have been!" The others echoed the sentiment cheerily.

"And merry Christmas and happy New Year to him, wherever he may be," Kaylee added. "He wouldn't take it from us, but he'll have it nevertheless."

"Thanks, Kaylee," Mal said softly. "Merry Christmas, to you and 'Nara and Jayne."

He had hardly blinked when the room was gone, and he was standing beside River in a harshly-lit, sterile-looking corridor. Two women in white coats were talking softly at the end of the hall, a man was pushing a cart full of medical supplies towards a lift, and there came the muffled noise of sobbing. "I ain't never been here. Ain't Ariel, where we stole those meds. That place had Core class. This..." He glanced around at the water-spots on the walls and the cracked floor tiles. "This is shoestring."

One of the doors along the hall opened, and Mal jumped as the sobbing shot even further up in volume before a nurse stepped out and shut the door. She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and Simon came swiftly into view, forehead crinkled in concern. "I just heard Bernard's mother was on that transporter that got detained. How's he taking it?"

The nurse shook her head. "Not well. She won't be here for another two days at least, with all the paperwork that'll come from that. When I told him, he yelled at me to get out. Wait, what are you doing here? I thought you had today off."

"I promised a couple of people in the burn ward that I'd visit them." Simon rubbed his face. "They hardly know a soul here apart from me. I'd just arrived when I heard about Bernard's mother."

"As if he hasn't been through enough as it is. I've been trying to get him to go keep company with some of the other kids here, but he acts as if he's not even listening to me. Maybe you can lend a hand. You've been his doctor for longer."

"I'm glad to sit with him for a bit, though I don't know if that will help." Simon and the nurse entered the room, Mal and River just behind them. A boy sat on the bed, arms wrapped around his knees, scowling ferociously. His expression lightened fractionally upon seeing Simon, but he said nothing.

"He has a blood disease." River sat on the end of the bed. "His mother had to leave him and work off-world to pay for his medicine, and he hasn't seen her in five months."

"Poor kid."

Simon pulled up a chair beside the boy. "Hello, Bernard. I'm sorry about your mother."

"Stupid transporter," Bernard muttered. "Everyone keeps saying if I'm patient Mum will get here. I hate being patient."

"I get that. It's hard to be patient all the time. You're allowed to be sad, and frustrated."

"I'm mad." Bernard kicked at the bed. "She promised she'd come. It's not fair."

"It's hard when people can't keep promises, isn't it?"

"Yeah. They're supposed to. Mum said I should always keep a promise, so why isn't she keeping hers?"

"Your mother would be here if she could, I know." Simon paused. "But that's part of what you do because you love your family. They don't keep a promise, and you try and forgive them. It doesn't mean you're not mad, but you try anyway."

River turned to gaze at Mal, a strange hardness in her eyes. "Remind me. How many times did you promise to turn off that Cortex screen? And how many times did he end up eating alone?"

"Too many." Mal stared at his hands. "River, why'd he stay as long as he did? I stopped being what he deserved a long time afore he left."

"Hot ash explodes from the volcano. Rains down on the city below. Covers it until you see nothing but dry dust." She hummed slightly. "Unless you remember. Because there was glory and light, before the dust came down, and somewhere hidden, it's still there. It's hard to leave if you've seen the city, even if you can't clear the ash away alone."

Bernard was pointing at a plate by his bed, which contained some slices of mango, a few strawberries, and several apples. "I got a little extra coin for my birthday and I spent most of it on that. For Mum and me. By the time she gets here, the mango will all be spoiled."

"Maybe we can put it in the cooler downstairs," Simon suggested. "It won't be quite as good, but it will keep."

"Maybe." Bernard sighed. "We always ate apples on Christmas. Mum could peel an apple so the peel all came off in one long strip. I've never been able to do that."

"How about this?" Simon examined one of the apples. "I'm going to visit some patients of mine downstairs. Afterwards I'll come back up and show you how to peel an apple in one piece, and you can surprise your mother when she gets here."

"Huh. You know how to do that?"

"I learned when I was around your age."

Bernard thought a moment. "I'd like that."

Despite himself, Mal half-smiled. "I do recall, he showed us on one of those apples the folk from Triumph threw in with their payment, when we landed there the year after Rose was born. He called it his 'signature impractical skill.' Jayne had to wash dishes for a week 'cause he bet it couldn't be done."

"Yes. Simon practiced and practiced that. Because when he and I were young—"

"—it was the one thing you were bad at," Mal completed. "And he wanted to be better than you at something, but when the time came to show it off, he changed his mind and pretended he couldn't, so's not to hurt your feelings."

River focused on Mal intently. "Six years ago he told you that, and yet you remember every word."

"If I ain't got Simon, I'll damn well hold on to some knowledge of him."

The doctor in question got up. "I'll be back, Bernard. Your mother will be here as soon as she can."

"Bye, Dr. Tam."

As they followed Simon into the hall and down the stairs, River turned to Mal. "Did he talk about the caterpillars?"

"Yeah. When he found out you all's gardener was spraying your momma's rose bushes to kill the aphids, and that it was killing the caterpillars too, he'd steal the bottles of spray and hide 'em under his bed. Got near fifteen of 'em there afore your folks figured out what the problem was."

"How about the high-heeled shoes?"

"You found high-heeled shoes in your aunt's closet. You was sure she'd fall and kill herself, trying to walk in 'em, so you went and picked the lock on the toolbox, got yourself a hand saw, and cut off all the heels. Simon, he said he'd done it so you wouldn't have to stay home from your friend's birthday party that Saturday."

River rolled her eyes. "High heels are an impractical anachronism. They distort the bone structure of the foot. The Osiris Waltz?"

"He was dancing with the bridesmaid at a wedding and some fool as had gotten a bit too much champagne tripped 'em both. She went into the table at just the wrong angle, damaged part of her spine. Her brother was going to try and carry her home, but Simon wouldn't let him move her, and that was good, 'cause otherwise her spinal cord would've gotten dislodged and she'd of been paralyzed for life. He said that's when he decided he'd stick to doctoring over dancing."

Simon pushed open a door and entered a room which contained two beds, though it had clearly been built for only a single. On one side was an ice-pale red-haired man, who was staring into space and muttering about pearls in oysters, eyes unfocused. From the way the covers lay over him, it was clear he was missing a leg from mid-thigh down.

The other bed contained a skinny woman, dark hair badly tangled, who was laboriously threading beads on a string with only her left hand. Her right arm had been almost completely amputated, most likely because of a more severe versions of the grotesque burns that covered the right side of her neck and cheek. Mal decided this was just his luck. Folk with burns. Burned, just like — nope, not going to think of that.

"Merry Christmas, Peter." Simon pulled up a chair between the two patients. "Merry Christmas, Daiyu. Is that a necklace you're making?"

"Intended it to be." The woman—Daiyu—sounded hoarse and weary. "Rate I'm going, I'll never get past bracelet-length. Not like any bit of pretty is going to distract from this anyway." She waved at her scarred face. "But I reckoned it was time I started practicing with my left hand."

"It's impressive. Stringing beads with one hand? I doubt I could do that."

"I certainly couldn't right away. Felt like heaven when I got the first one on, 'til I remembered the fifty I still had left to do." She poked the string through a new bead. "Still. I'm faster than I was when I started out. A bit."

"And how about you, Peter?" Simon leaned over to the man. "How are you?"

"I'm so damn tired," Peter mumbled. "Can't sleep, though."

"War nightmares?" Simon asked gently.

"Yeah. I ain't dreamed 'bout the war in years, and then after the accident, here it starts up again." Peter covered his face. "It's like I'm already dead and they've buried me. Renci de Shang-de, qing dai wo zou..."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Erase the past, mayhap." Peter flopped over to face the wall, and Mal almost didn't catch his next words. "Send them gorram Independents to hell where they belong..."

Mal started. "These are them veterans he was collecting coin for yesterday?" He whipped around towards the door. "I ain't staying to see—"

River's hand closed over his arm like a vice. "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy."

"I ain't merciful. If you want to see mercy, stay and watch Simon, and let me go."

"You loved the mercy in him. Loved him. And you can't hide it from me." River's eyes bore into Mal. "You still do."

Daiyu sighed. "Peter, he just can't let go. Don't know if he bore such a grudge before his accident brought all the memories back, but there it is."

"I wish he didn't. I wish the Alliance hadn't dropped you like overheated metal after you gave them your lives. I wish people could think of some way besides killing to get what they want." Simon gave a rueful smile. "And as a man I knew once said, if wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak."

"True enough." Daiyu twisted the end of her string, trying to get it small enough to go through the next bead. "I might hate the Independents too, 'cept I'm too busy hating myself. Truth be told, if that hell Peter speaks of exists, I'm going there as much as anyone."

"What makes you say that?"

"We all turned on each other, that time trapped in Serenity Valley." Daiyu picked out a purple bead. "When the top brass just left us there, both sides, left us there. Fighting for food. Realizing the word bloodbath isn't just figurative."

"She was in Serenity?" Mal frowned at Daiyu, surprised. Somehow it had never occurred to him to think much about the Alliance soldiers who'd been left there, what their fate might have been.

"So I reckon we're destined for hell, all of us. Certainly no heaven's waiting."

Simon looked thoughtful. "Would you like to know what I think? About heaven and hell?"

"What?"

"It's an Earth-That-Was story I read. A woman was given the chance to visit both heaven and hell, to see what each was like. First, she went to hell." Simon leaned back in his chair. "Everyone was seated at a table, where a great banquet was spread. There were no utensils. They could only eat with their hands, but their elbows wouldn't bend. They always had to keep their arms straight. So though they could pick up the food, they could never get it into their mouths. They had to sit and watch all the delicious dishes without being able to eat any of it."

"Hellish enough," Daiyu agreed.

"Then she went to heaven. Everyone there was at a table that had a great banquet, just like in hell, and just like in hell, nobody could bend their elbows. But the difference was, in heaven, they could eat, because they were feeding each other."

"Hmm." Daiyu tilted her head to one side. "That's...hmm."

Simon looked embarrassed. "Just a thought. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"If it comes to that…" Daiyu set down her bead. "I'll be honest, I miss singing. They played some recorded songs for us earlier, but it's not the same as a human voice. And Peter won't sing. Do you?"

"Not very well, but if live music is what you're looking for, I could give it a try." Simon reached into his pocket. "I'm mostly self-taught, so I can't promise it will be good, but I do know 'Silent Night.'"

"That'd be shiny."

Mal leaned in. "What's he—"

Simon lifted the harmonica to his mouth and began to play. Daiyu sang along hoarsely. "Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright…"

"He kept it." Mal gazed at Simon, stunned. "Becca's harmonica. All this time. And he still plays it. I showed him the basics…but I never reckoned he'd keep with it."

Daiyu finished the verse. "Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace."

Abruptly River gripped Mal's arm, and the room melted away. They stood now in a strange open place, and Mal noted, as he hadn't before, that River's hair was growing grey. With every passing second, more wrinkles appeared around her eyes and mouth, she grew thinner, and her bones showed through.

"You're getting—old."

"The lives of the Ghosts of Christmas Present are very short." Even River's voice was growing rougher. "I have stayed, in fact, longer than most."

"But—" As Mal swept his gaze over River, he saw something odd protruding from beneath her colorful skirt. Something bony and claw-like and twitching. "River, what's that?"

River's face grew sorrowful, and she raised the edge of her skirt. Out from underneath scrambled two children, a girl and boy. The girl was soaked with dried blood, brown and crusting on her skin, and in her huge glassy eyes held a reflection of a scene of prisoners, naked, tied, stumbling along some road. The boy was dressed in crisp, clean clothing, but from his mouth emerged a cackling, hysterical laugh for no discernable reason, and he seemed to be chewing on a severed thumb.

Mal actually stumbled several steps back before he could get his legs under control. "They ain't—they ain't yours, are they?"

"They are Humankind's." River sounded unbearably sad. "They cling to me, appealing from their parents. This boy is Blindness. This girl is Hate. Beware them both and all that comes from them, but most of all beware this boy, for it is through him we humans will eat ourselves alive, unless we turn from our current path." She threw her head back. "Open your eyes, oh living, or destruction will snatch you from behind!"

"Can't no one help 'em?" Horror and pity of the two children curled in Mal's stomach as they scrabbled in the dirt near his feet. "Ain't there no place they can go?"

"Ain't there any prisons?" River copied his voice and words, with an undertone of cold. "Ain't there any work camps?"

And she was gone. Mal looked around frantically, and for a moment thought he had been left alone. Then, as he opened his mouth to shout, he saw it—a solemn phantom, draped and hooded, coming towards him like a mist along the ground.

Chapter Text

The phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached, and the very air through which it moved seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. Otherwise it would have been difficult to separate the figure from the night's darkness that surrounded it.

Mal waited for the Spirit to speak, but it was silent, so he ventured to do so himself. "I can reason out a pattern. You're the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, ain't you?"

The Spirit still said nothing, but pointed onward with its hand.

"You're here to show me what ain't happened yet, but what's going to happen. That so?" This time he got what could pass for a nod. Though he couldn't see any eyes, Mal got the disturbing impression that the Ghost was staring fixedly at his face, and he devoutly wished it would look elsewhere. Anywhere else. At the ground. At his boots. At his left ear. The farther on this night went, the more Mal felt he was being measured and found wanting, by his own standards as much as anyone's, and he weren't mighty keen on looking no one in the eye just now.

"Alright, no point in denying it. You're making me a mite fearful here. But you're trying to do me good, that I know. I want to do better than I've done, so I'll bear you company, and thank you for any knowledge you give." Mal shifted from foot to foot. "Just—won't you speak a word?"

No reply. Still just the hand, pointing into blackness.

"Alright. Guess not. Lead on, then."

Before he'd taken more than a step after the Ghost, buildings seemed to spring up around them. Blinking in the sudden cloudy daylight, Mal saw they were again in the muddy road outside the row of houses in town he'd visited with River.

Josefina and Zuberi were shoveling snow in the same yard now, wedding rings on their fingers. Quang was examining his front steps, which appeared to have lost a support, his hair several shades grayer than it had been before. Yasamin was leaning on his gate, and Mal caught the tail end of what she was saying.

"No, I'm afraid I don't know much about it. Sorry. I only know that he's dead."

"When did it happen?" asked Zuberi, digging his shovel into the snow. "Him dying, I mean."

"Last night, I think."

"I heard he was sick." Quang straightened up. "Didn't know it was that bad, though."

Josefina frowned. "Why didn't anybody help him, then? I thought he had friends here in town."

"Yeah, he did." Yasamin stuck her hands in his pockets. "But you know how he's acted, last while. Shut himself up, wouldn't see anybody."

"What about family?" Zuberi heaved a shovelful of snow off his walk.

"Think they died, years ago, or else they lived too far away to get here in time." Yasamin pushed herself off the gate. "Mayhap it was grief for them as made him the way he was."

"Mayhap." Josefina started for her shed. "But I reckon it was loneliness more than anything else. It's a pity. He wasn't that old, was he?"

"No, he wasn't. You're right, it's sad." Quang sighed. "Well, at any rate. I've got to go cut a new support for this, afore the relatives swarm over it today. Gorram wood rot. Gets you every time."

"Yeah. I've got to run to the market. That husband of mine smashed our bottle of gin, and I need it for the Christmas cake. Too bad I'll have to pass Diogenes's bookshop on the way home. That man yells at anyone he suspects of buying alcohol." Yasamin headed down the road.

As she went out of sight, Mal found himself, with the Ghost, in the living room where Kaylee and Inara had held their Christmas party. Though it was hung with greenery and ribbons now, as it had been then, Mal at first thought it was empty. But then a quiet sob alerted him, and he took a step forward to see better.

Kaylee was curled up on the loveseat, a mostly-empty bottle and cup on the table nearby. Her eyes were red and puffy, and tears dripped down her cheeks. After a few moments of swiping at her face with her cuffs, she snatched the bottle up and began refilling the cup.

The door opened and Inara came slowly in, appearing older and more shaken than Mal had ever seen her. When she saw Kaylee, she hurried forward and firmly removed the cup from her hand. "Sweetie, no. Don't do this to yourself."

"'Nara, it's my fault!" Kaylee drew herself into a ball, rocking back and forth. "It's my fault he's dead."

"No, it isn't." Inara sat down next to her, wrapping her in a tight embrace.

"Yes, it is. I'm the one who went to see him, and he told me he'd be alright, and I believed him! I should've seen. I should've gotten help." Kaylee buried her face in Inara's shoulder. "If he was really that sick—"

Inara took a deep breath, looking as if she were stealing herself. "Baobei, he was sick, but that wasn't why he died."

"What?" Kaylee frowned. "I don't get it."

"He—" Inara brushed a strand of hair off Kaylee's face. "He killed himself."

Kaylee's eyes widened with horror. "No! But—why?"

"I don't know. We probably never will." Inara leaned her forehead against Kaylee's. "He was so isolated. Maybe that was it, or maybe he'd just watched too many people die. No matter what, it's not your fault. I understand, though. I feel guilty too, but there wasn't anything we could have done."

Mal turned to the Ghost. "You have to tell me. Who is this they're talking of?" The Ghost gave no response.

"I just—I kept hopin' it would be alright," Kaylee was saying tearfully. "After Shepherd Book died on Haven, I hoped we was done with losin' folk. And then River leaves, dies far away from us, all we see is that blurry capture of her body. Still, though, I thought we'd keep on. But now—we're down near half our crew, and none died in peace. 'Nara, those Alliance folks, they're takin' the sky from us." She clenched her fists. "I hate 'em. I'd torture 'em to death if I could."

"Kaylee, don't!" Mal interrupted. "Don't want you thinking to torture nobody, not you." He whirled on the Ghost. "What chance of we got, if she's hating so bad?" The Ghost did not move. "Wait. She said down near half our crew. That means four, don't it? Book and River and two others? Who died besides this man here?"

The Ghost raised its hand and pointed. Mal, turning his head, saw that they were again standing amid the rice fields, and that the Ghost was gesturing towards the ramshackle house he knew belonged to… "Not Wash. He's got to live. He's in there with his kids, I'll prove it to you!" He ran towards the house, and, though he found himself unable to actually open the door, moved through it into the main room.

The table was laden as it had been before—the hot chocolate mayhap slightly less well-mixed, the sausages mayhap just a mite more burned, and the fruit bread mayhap a bit less baked, but all there. The Washburne kids sat in the room, the three of them seeming to have shot up like bamboo sprouts in however many years had passed. Lumi was hugging her clearly well-loved redbird, Benjamin had a worn blanket around his shoulders, and Rose was reading, slowly, from a book.

"For death and life are one, even as the river and the sea are one. In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond…" She squinted at the page. "And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow, your hearts dream of spring." She wrinkled her brow. "Trust in the dreams…" Shaking her head, she put the book down.

"Can't you finish?" Lumi petted her bird.

"Let's wait for Momma." Rose sighed. "She can tell if I've been straining my eyes, and I don't want her feeling guilty 'cause we can't pay for new glasses just yet. Where is she? Thought she'd be due home by this time."

"She is." Benjamin pulled his blanket around him more tightly. "But I think she walks a little slower than she used to, since…for awhile."

They were all three very quiet for a moment. Then Rose spoke, in a determinedly cheerful voice. "You know, I've seen her walk real fast when she—when she was helping Dad along the path."

"Me too," Lumi agreed.

"Yeah," Benjamin added.

"But he always pulled his weight as much as he could." Rose rubbed her eyes. "And I guess loving someone means it seems less trouble." She perked up slightly at the sound of footsteps. "Here she comes."

Zoe came through the door with a small bag. She set it down and held out her arms, and immediately all three kids ran to cling to her. "Look at that. You done some Christmas cooking. Nobody but Rose lit the stove, did they?"

Benjamin shook his head. "Lumi set the table all by herself, didn't drop anything."

"Well, ain't you a big girl, now?" Zoe tried to smile. "And, let's see, Benjamin mixed the hot chocolate?"

"Uh-huh!" Lumi put an arm around her brother. "And when he poured, he went and poured five cups…" She stopped as her siblings glared at her. "Sorry."

"We said we weren't going to talk about that," Benjamin reprimanded her.

"It's a natural thing to do." Zoe peered at Rose. "Honey, have you been straining your eyes again?"

"Just to get the eggshell out of the batter for the fruit bread." Rose pointed at the loaf on the table. "I think there might be some still in there. But it won't kill us."

"That it won't." Zoe opened her bag. "Couldn't find but one grapefruit, for what they were charging, but we'll get a quarter each, at least."

"Momma?" Rose leaned on the table. "Would you mayhap like to walk down to Dad's tree after we eat?"

Zoe nodded. "Think I would at that. It does me good to see the place. Looks peaceful. 'Sides, the tree's so tall, there's days I fancy he's up at the top, seeing the stars. Fancy he's not dirt-bound no more." She swallowed. "Leaf on the wind and all…he became a pilot half to see the stars, you know. I wanted to get him up on a ship once more, though he couldn't of flown it, but it hurt so much to move him at the last…I didn't want him to die on the ground…" She gasped, and tears trickled down her cheeks.

Terrible pain knifed through Mal's chest. "You know I've never seen her cry? But there weren't no one like Wash, neither. Zoe, why'd this have to happen to you?"

After a few minutes of embracing on the part of the four, Zoe dried her eyes. "I've got faith he's proud of you all. Speaking of, Rose, the midwife down in town says she'll be glad to teach you some of her trade. It might not matter to an off-world doctor, but she's got good wisdom."

"I know it." Rose smiled.

Zoe chuckled a little. "I'll see you be an off-world doctor yourself, one of these days. I'll see all of you soar on the wind." She sobered. "Just the one thing—no matter where we all go, do me a kindness and don't forget your dad. He done so much for all of us."

"We ain't going to do that!" Benjamin stood straight. "Best dad as ever lived. Ain't nobody can say otherwise."

Lumi hugged Zoe. "I'll always remember."

Rose nodded. "Me, I couldn't forget if I tried."

Mal stood, nearly frozen. "Spirit, tell me. This we're seeing, has it got to turn out as you're showing it to me? Can't it change? Please, ain't there still time?"

The Ghost again gestured with its hand, and a dingy darkness swallowed up the Washburne house. Mal looked about and saw they were in a tumbledown warehouse. So little light leaked in that he could only see the outlines of the two people there—a man crouched on the floor, and a woman residing on a crate as if it was a throne, but he recognized the latter's voice the moment she spoke.

"Do tell what's so worth my time, Kohaku. I have a few little capers I have to take care of before the night is done, with people that pay more than you ever have."

"That's Saffron." Mal frowned. "Or Bridget, or Yolanda, or any other of the thousand and one names she probably has. What's she got to do with any of this?"

"You'll see what's worth it, right enough." A voice emerged from the other figure. "I've snatched a nice trifle this night. Reckon it'll pay my debt to you and then some."

"Why, I am shocked." Saffron put her hand to her mouth in mock indignation. "Have you stooped to stealing? I thought you made a nice honest living as a whore."

"Nah, it's honest enough. He weren't going to make no use of them. Not a dead man."

"Your morality pleases me." Saffron tapped her foot. "Do lay out this trifle."

The figure—Kohaku—opened his bag and pulled out what appeared to be a lock box. "He weren't rich, but he had some coin in here. Broke the lock, I did, and it's enough to cover me."

Saffron took the lock box and opened it, revealing something that, from its general shape, Mal guessed was a stack of credits. "Well, well. You just may not be dying in a nasty way at the end of this month." She shifted under the stack, and pulled out something small that was hidden by the dark. "Now, this is interesting."

"Oh, that. It's junk. Worth a couple credits, mayhap."

"You're assuming the payoff is the point." Saffron chuckled. "I do like souvenirs. Don't you?"

A gun cocked. "Then you should've bought a nice picture frame." Saffron yelped and went for an ankle holster, but Amrita the mercenary jammed a gun against the back of her head. "Hands where I can see 'em, or we'll see what your brains look like on the walls."

Kohaku tried to bolt, but only got three steps afore Jayne pressed a knife to his neck. "Ya ain't goin' nowhere." He dragged Kohaku around and smashed his head against the wall. He sagged, unconscious.

"You going to kill me?" Saffron sat, tense.

"Eh. You're worth more alive." Amrita whipped out something with her free hand and shoved it under Saffron's nose. She dropped like a stone. "I like drugs. They don't leave bruises. No one can accuse you of damagin' the bounty."

Jayne prodded the limp Kohaku with his foot. "Suppose we should leave him here, he ain't worth nothin'. No point draggin' him along."

"What'd he steal?"

"You restrain her, and I'll see."

Mal watched as Amrita briskly snapped a pair of handcuffs on Saffron, then began removing her weapons. "So they're bounty hunting now. Huh." 

"Mostly just cash." Jayne stuck the lock box back in his bag.

"She dropped somethin' when she went for the gun." Amrita jerked her head. "It's over there."

Stooping over, Jayne grabbed the 'souvenir,' then froze. "I know this. It belonged to Mal. How—"

The Ghost's hand closed over Mal's arm, and he found himself back in the strange open place. "How'd something of mine get there? It—" He stopped in horror. "Thief said he'd taken that box from a dead man. It weren't me, were it? Were it? Did I cause that pain to Kaylee, to 'Nara?" The Ghost gave no signal, no gesture. "Talk to me! Or let me see what you are, if you won't do that, you kewu de lao baojun!" He lunged at the Ghost in a fury and yanked hard at the hood covering its head. The cloth came away, and Mal dropped back in shock.

The Ghost's face was decked out with ghastly burns, the skin charred black in places and scorched red in others. Half the mouth lacked lips, so the teeth showed through, and what remained of the long brown hair was thin and knotted. The Ghost gazed at him, deep sadness in its one remaining eye. "I am so very sorry, dear one. I ain't wanted you to see me like this."

Mal sucked in a breath. "Becca?"

"Yes." Becca Reynolds reached out with a scarred hand to touch his face. "I thought this might be easier, were you not walking 'round with this devilish look by you. But I should've known you wouldn't stop at that."

"You ain't no devil, not ever." Mal grabbed her hand. "It were devils as made you this way. When they burned you all on Shadow, I promised I'd fight 'em 'til they shot me down—"

"And I cried when you did." Becca gripped his shoulder. "I wanted better for you, than to spend your precious life with a gun in your hand and hate in your soul. Whether or not they deserved to die, you didn't deserve to kill 'em."

Mal started. "Simon told me that too."

"He was right."

"What's it matter, if I can't change what's to come? If this is the future, if it ain't just what may be, I'll die as closed-off as I am now. 'Least I could do would be to stay away from my crew."

Becca shook her head. "You protect folk, Mal, it's what you do—"

"It's what I did."

"Staying away don't make 'em more safe. It makes 'em less."

"What do you mean?"

Abruptly, the strange place vanished, and Mal, momentarily blinded by daylight, found himself outside his own house, in less good repair than it had been but still essentially the same. Becca squeezed his arm. "I ain't wishful to show you this. But I got to."

About to ask what she meant, Mal heard quick footsteps and turned to see Inara striding down the path, utter fury in her eyes. She stomped up the steps and banged on the door until it rattled on its hinges. Mal frowned. "Why's she knocking at my house? How am I supposed to answer if I'm dead?"

"Mal!" Inara shouted. "I know you're in there. If you don't open this door I'm breaking it down!" No answer. "Mal, you may recall there is an ax outside near your woodpile. I swear by all that's holy I will use it! I'll chop your door into kindling—"

"Fine, I'm coming!" It was his own voice, he knew it. "Just stop that." A few seconds later, the door opened and Mal saw himself once more, years older, face now twisted with bitterness and eyes as hard as flint. "What the hell is your problem?"

"My problem!" Inara hissed. "I am not the one with the problem here, you heartless, blind fool! Where were you this morning?"

The older Mal raised an eyebrow. "Was there somewhere I was supposed to be?"

"Yes, there was! I seem to recall a certain funeral you were told to attend!"

"He's dead and gone, 'Nara. Any pretty words you say over his body ain't going to change that."

"That doesn't matter! He'd have wanted you there."

"So?"

"So he loved you!" Inara exploded. "He loved you until the day he died, even though you failed him over and over and you still are!"

"Don't you throw that in my face." The older Mal turned half-away. "Simon did that to himself. I ain't had nothing to do with it."

Mal felt precisely as if someone had thrown a ten-pound weight into his chest. "No. Not Simon, never—it should've been me." He tried to breathe, but it felt as if the air was gone. Words from earlier came back to him. Shut himself up, wouldn't see anybody…He wasn't that old, was he?…He was so isolated. Maybe that was it, or maybe he'd just watched too many people die. "Becca, it should've been me."

"I don't believe this!" Inara paced back and forth. "Here you are. You say over and over again that you hate the Alliance. Well, do you know what the Alliance does? They put a pretty cover on death. They pretend it didn't happen, and that we can go on with our happy little lives, and that no one deserves to be mourned because whatever cause we're fighting for is greater than they are. You say you hate the Alliance, but today the man who was your medic and your lover and your friend got put in the ground, and you weren't there. You hate them, you say? You are them."

The older Mal glared. "You want to know why I didn't come, 'Nara?"

Inara crossed her arms. "Longing to hear."

"'Cause he was weak. Alliance took his sister and sawed on her brain. They killed Book on Haven, shot River for telling truth about 'em, Wash died from wounds he got fighting 'em. Simon should've gone hard as stone, 'cause that's how you survive in this 'verse, but no. Last time he was here, there he was, still talking 'bout mercy, of all the gorram things. And I ain't got time for no one who's that stupid."

Mal felt his stomach roil. He had to shut his eyes rather than gaze into that unyielding reflection of his face. "Ai ya. Tian a…Becca, I'm a monster." He whirled around and grabbed his sister's hands, staring into her grieving face. "How did that happen? And how the hell did Simon get so far gone?"

A tear trickled from Becca's remaining eye. "You kept walking the way you're walking now, dear one. And when your doctor's patients passed on, he began thinking he should have died instead of his sister, that his life was worth less than hers."

"That's not true, and she'd have told him so if she could!"

"But she couldn't, and no one he believed told him otherwise."

"Would he have believed me?" Becca only looked at him sadly. "I have to do something. Tell me it ain't too late to stop this! I won't become that man over there, I swear it. Becca, please, if there's aught of mercy anywhere in this 'verse, take me back and let me try and walk another way."

Becca laid two hands on his shoulders and gazed softly at him. "Live as you'd have me live."

Mal's world shrank to his sister's charred yet sweet face, until it melted away into the darkness that wrapped around them. Reaching wildly out for her, he stumbled, instead, into the edge of a broken chair.

OoOoO

And the chair was his own, and so was the room. Morning light was shining through the windows, and he—he hadn't yet become that older, hardened version of himself who scorned any kindness.

"There's still time, I know there is." Mal realized dimly he was shaking with relief. "Thank you, Becca.Thank you, River, and you, Shepherd." He paused. "And you, Operative, if you're listening in, I guess I owe you some too. Still don't like you, but at least you've showed you're human."

His voice was rough and, putting a hand to his face, he realized he'd been crying—for Wash, for Becca, for Simon, for himself. But now Mal couldn't help it—he laughed, and threw up his hands. "It can be different and it will. I don't know what to do first! Hell, I don't even know how long this has all taken. I don't know what day it is, I don't know anything. Might as well be drunk. Might as well have been drunk for years, to be so blind." He stopped and groaned. "I'll have to say sorry, won't I? Well, I will, if it kills me."

Marching to his wave screen, he punched in the appropriate wave code. Several seconds later, the connection came through, and Wash's face flashed up on the screen, gloriously alive, with both eyebrows raised. "Um, hi. How completely and utterly…unexpected. Would a pair of earplugs be a sound investment right about now?"

Mal, half-giddy at seeing his old pilot still among the living, grinned. "Merry Christmas, Wash."

"Hold on, the connection's gone bad." Wash began fiddling with the controls. "The screen's making it look like you're smiling, plus, it sounds like you just wished me a merry Christmas."

"I did. To you, and all your family, 'cause you deserve it."

Wash turned halfway around in his chair. "My stoic poinsettia, I could use some help here. There's a thing on the wave screen that has Mal's face and is talking with Mal's voice and is wearing Mal's clothes, but isn't Mal."

Zoe came into view, Lumi clinging to one hand. "What's he doing, then? Cartwheels?"

Mal took a breath. "No. He's apologizing."

Both Zoe's and Wash's jaws hit the floor. Mal would have gotten a lot more appreciation out of the sight if their shock hadn't reminded him just how much he'd gone wrong. Wash recovered first, to an extent. "Ah, Mal, you are aware of the definition of an apology, right? It means you think you've made a mistake and you regret that. Are you sure you haven't mixed it up with something else?"

"Right sure. Owe this 'specially to you, Zoe." Mal made himself meet her eyes. "Still don't know if I'd have done what you did, signing that tax form to get the doctors called in, but I ain't got no call to insult you for it. You know better than I what was needed for your people, and you did it to save their lives."

"What—" Zoe cleared her throat. "You serious?"

"As much as I've ever been or will be."

"What turned you 'round on this?"

"I—" Mal decided on as much truth as he could give without sounding more deranged than River on a bad day. "I figured out I ain't so above reproach that I've got the right to dictate your morality. There's plenty I've done wrong, past few years, and I'd like to do better."

"Wow." Wash's eyes widened. "Hell is looking kind of…frosty, about now. I think I even see a little ice, just around the edges. Goes to show, you never can trust the weather reports."

Zoe considered him carefully. "Not sure I'm—not sure I'm at the forgiving place just yet, sir, not in small part 'cause I ain't sure if this will last, you being sorry. But I sure do hope it does."

"It will."

"Time always tells." Zoe's stern expression softened a bit. "But you have a merry Christmas."

There was a crash and a shout from behind. "Momma!" Benjamin yelled. "Rose broke that cup!"

"I wouldn't of if you hadn't knocked into me!" Rose accused. "Always under my feet—"

"'Scuse me." Zoe rolled her eyes. "Gotta go break this up." She vanished from sight.

Wash put an arm around Lumi. "Who even knows why I believe you, but I do. But if you've been thinking about this that much, you'll have realized we're not the only people you should be saying sorry to."

"I've been coming at that conclusion, yeah. Won't bother you more now, just wanted to speak my piece."

"Glad you did. Merry Christmas, Mal." Wash grabbed his cane and pulled himself to his feet. "Come on, Lumi. Let's go take a knife to some poor helpless grapefruits." He leaned over and cut the connection.

Being a mite more disorganized in mind than was usual, it took Mal a mite more time than usual to get himself dressed and out the door. But out it he got, and would've strode directly down the path had not his boot knocked against something sitting on his porch. Glancing around, he saw the something was, if truth be told, the smallish box Simon had shown up with yesterday, and which Mal guessed he must have overlooked in the dark of the evening. But why had Simon left it here? Couldn't be by accident, he weren't a careless man.

Sitting on his steps, Mal used his knife to cut the twine on the box and opened it. Inside were two apples, and a folded note. He picked up the last, recognizing Simon's precise handwriting immediately.

I found these and thought of you. Don't worry, they aren't poisoned. Performing another autopsy is not how I'd like to spend my time. Merry Christmas. —Simon

Mal sat there a few minutes. Then he put the apples in his pockets and headed for town.

Folk were pouring out into the streets, jostling each other, shouting Christmas greetings, hugging or shaking hands with their friends. Mal slipped and slid along the icy road, nearly crashing into Lela the wood carver as she rounded the corner, carrying the basket that had been returned to her under the influence of River's silver stars. Not sure that even Ghost-of-Christmas-Present-weirdness would keep her in a good mood for more than five seconds, he hastily skated down the street.

Zuberi, in his yard, appeared to be trying to hide behind his shovel, a monumental ambition that, due his six feet of height, didn't look to be happening anytime soon. "Will you all stop it? I was just asking who was coming to Josefina's Christmas dinner! That's all!"

"Of course," Yasamin agreed readily. "Because I definitely didn't see that little package that you absolutely didn't put in your pocket that in no way has Josefina's name in huge letters on it."

Quang snorted from his roof. "Yeah, you really need to work on your stealth."

"Fine!" Zuberi pulled the package from his pocket. "I'll just give it to her before you all start trying to guess what it is."

Josefina swung herself over the fence, clearly intrigued, and pulled the paper off, revealing a purple scarf. "Oh, it's so soft. I'll definitely wear this. Thanks so much!" Mischievously, she kissed him on the cheek and then hopped back over her fence. Zuberi appeared about to faint.

Mal had to laugh, though he did it quietly.

Most of the shops he passed were closed, even those who didn't celebrate Christmas being glad to take advantage of a day off. However, he guessed that Diogenes the bookshop owner would be stubbornly open, as always, and he was completely right.

"Shiny," remarked said bookshop owner as Mal came in through his door. "Planning to improve with literature those brain cells of yours that will remain after you get utterly stinking drunk? Just give it up now. With your luck, it'll be the frontal lobes that go first."

Despite this non-promising start, Mal managed to obtain what he was looking for, and decided that Diogenes's caustic manner was more than made up for by the fact that he gave incredible bargains. Otherwise his bookshop would've been torched by now, Mal thought irritably, as Diogenes sent him out into the street with the cheery message: "If you get sick on that last one, I'll geld you with a rusty knife! Don't think I won't!"

The streets were still treacherously slick, but Mal made his way to the hospital in good time, of which he was glad. He weren't sure he was ready to get face-to-face with Simon yet, not after how he'd acted yesterday, so the earlier he arrived, got done, and left, the better. Though he'd of liked to give some coin, he expected the doctors had already done their shopping for whatever decent food they could provide, so he'd go with the next best thing, even if it'd be harder.

The lady at the reception desk glanced up with a tired smile. "Yes, can I help you?"

"Yeah. Mayhap I'm mistaken, but I believe you've got a couple of folks in your burn ward named Daiyu and Peter. I was told of 'em, and that they didn't have no family as is here. Mind asking 'em if they'd care for a few minutes of company? No harm if they say no." He was half-hoping they would.

"Come with me, and we'll ask together." The lady led the way through several corridors until they reached the hall Mal had visited, invisible, with River. "Hold on." She poked her head into the room. "Hi, you two. I—oh, he's asleep? Sorry." She lowered her voice until Mal couldn't hear her. After a few moments of exchange, she drew her head back out. "Peter's sleeping, which he does precious little of, so try not to wake him up, but Daiyu says she'd be happy indeed for some company."

"Thanks." Mal entered the room, ordering himself not to show any nerves. Daiyu was sitting as he'd seen her, pale, with her dark tangled hair and the nasty-looking burns, clutching her short string of beads in her remaining hand. Peter was mostly out of sight, as he'd pulled the blanket over his head.

Daiyu crinkled her forehead. "Greetings. Pardon, but we haven't met, have we?"

"No, we ain't." Mal shoved his hands in his pockets. "But I happened to hear you were alone this Christmas. Thought that was a shame."

"Who told you?"

Mal decided, again, to go with the option that would make him seem not-deranged. "Didn't hear your names specifically, but Dr. Simon Tam told me."

"Oh, well, if Dr. Tam knows you, that's alright then. Have a seat." Daiyu jerked her head towards the empty chair between the two beds. "You don't have to stay long if you don't want to. It's really nice of you to come at all, but lots of people don't like looking at all this—" she gestured towards her burns "—that much."

"Seen worse, often enough." Mal took a seat.

"Really?" Daiyu gave him a curious look. "Only people I know who regularly see worse than this are doctors, emergency workers, and soldiers. Which one are you?"

Keeping up a lie around this would be plain impossible. "Was a soldier, once. Ain't no more, but you don't forget."

"That's true enough," Daiyu agreed. "I'm no soldier either, haven't been for a good long time, but I fought for Unification, way back when."

"War's long done." Mal didn't believe a word of that, but it was easier than staying on the subject. He was surprised when Daiyu shook her head.

"No, it's not. Not really. Not for me, at least. Too much anger there."

"At the Independents?" This was stupid. He shouldn't have come.

"At first, yeah. I came from a moon that supported Independence, actually. See, my family had this shop, we sold ship parts. When the Alliance put a base near our town, no one would sell to them, except us." Daiyu gripped her blankets. "Townsfolk were our friends. They knew we'd had poor business for nearly a year, that we had holes in our shoes and a roof that leaked, but when we started selling to the Feds, they burned us out. We lost everything."

"That's…awful."

"Yeah. So I joined up for Unification. Fought for years, fought in Serenity Valley, even. Guess you might know, as a soldier, but it didn't matter which side you were on for that battle, your chances of getting out alive were about the size of a pin. But I did. I got out, and I'd given the army years of my life, and guess what? It's made no difference. My family lives no better under Alliance rule, nor does most anyone I've met." Daiyu sighed. "Guess if you fought in those wars, I'm going and offending you no matter which side you were on."

"No, you ain't," Mal said, and found he meant it. "Guess I didn't tell you my name. It's Malcolm Reynolds. Mal."

"Mine's Daiyu Somerville. That over there, is Peter Wong."

Peter tossed and turned, muttering. Daiyu glanced at him. "I think he's going a little crazy, being stuck here for so long. I mean, I am too, but I worry about leaving. Don't know where I'm supposed to work, now. Sorry, I'm talking your ear off."

"Ain't a problem." It got him off the hook. "Do you like apples?"

Daiyu's face lit up. "I absolutely do."

"I've got some." Mal got one of the apples out and began cutting it. "You can go ahead and talk, if you want."

"Oh! Well, as I said, I'm worried about leaving because, clearly, one arm here, narrows the working options somewhat." She laughed. "I've thought of being a stand-up comedian. Tell people funny stories about death, death, and more death. What do you think?"

"Sounds good," Mal agreed. "Nice welcome change of pace. I can see it all now."

"I could get any comedy club closed down. One thing I've said I will do, though, if it's humanely possible."

"What's that?"

"I'll learn to do handstands again. Completely and utterly impractical. But I want to. Just for me, just because. You know, I once won an enormous jar of vanilla pudding that way. Prize at a fair, for the person who could walk the farthest on their hands."

"How far did you get?" Mal offered her a slice of apple. "Here you go."

"Thanks." Daiyu took it. "I got seven feet. And then I stuck a label that said Regina's Finest Super-Glue on the jar and ate out of it with a spoon for the rest of the day. If I hadn't, my brother would have made off with it, sure as taxes."

Mal cut a slice for himself. "Reminds me. I used to sail in a Firefly, do transport and suchlike." He decided not to mention the transport-was-mostly-stolen part of it. "My crew and me, we was transporting these boxes of jewelry, and our client couldn't pick 'em up for a day after we landed. So we was waiting and—"

"Mal?" Simon was standing in the doorway, looking utterly stunned. "What—you—how the—what?"

"Right." This was a mite more than usually awkward. "I'm. As it happens. I'm visiting." He gestured at Daiyu. "She says she don't mind the company."

"I don't." Daiyu took another piece of apple. "Mal here seems a decent sort. Doesn't mind when I babble. Plus, he supports my dream to do stand-up comedy. Have some apple."

"In a minute," Simon said distractedly. "Mal, I need to talk to you. Hallway. Now."

It weren't exactly a surprise, his being distrustful. For all he knew, Mal had come to terrorize his patients. "Alright." He set the other half of the fruit on the table. "Eat what you want of that."

"Dangerous offer." Daiyu chuckled. "I might eat it all."

Mal followed Simon into the corridor. The doctor slammed the door shut and turned to Mal. "I don't care if you yell at me, but if you've got any decency, don't bother Daiyu and Peter. Alliance or not, they're recovering from trauma and serious injuries. So if you're only here to treat them like trash, just save me the trouble of throwing you out and leave on your own."

"I don't blame you for being suspicious. But I ain't come here to treat 'em like trash. I've done too much mistreatment already, to folk who I owe a lot more." Mal forced himself to look at Simon. "I was a complete hun dan yesterday, and there's times in the past when I've been downright cruel to you, and I'm sorry. You deserved far better at my hands."

"How—what changed your mind?"

"I think—" Mal hesitated. "Best way of putting it is, I got a chance to see myself from the outside, like other folk see me. And if truth's told, I didn't like what I saw all that much." He remembered the hardened face of the self he could become, and had to suppress a shiver. "I won't say I'm a good man, but I sure as hell don't want to be one as hurts others to keep himself safe."

"You came to see Daiyu and Peter." It was difficult to tell what Simon was thinking. "Why?"

Truth would probably be best here. "I started thinking mayhap they was human, not monsters, but I weren't positive. Came to see for sure."

"Do you have a conclusion?"

"Human."

Simon peered at him. "You're right. You've been a complete hun dan."

"If you want me to leave, I get it."

"No. Please don't." Simon sounded odd and vulnerable for just a moment, but then Mal was almost convinced he'd imagined it. "If you can make Daiyu as cheerful as she looked when I came in, and you don't intend to treat them badly, I'm certainly not going to chase you away. I was going to sit with them for awhile, so I'll join you."

Daiyu waved at them as they came back into the room. "This apple is shiny, Dr. Tam. Have some. And you, Mal, tell me more about these boxes of jewelry you were transporting."

"Oh." Simon smacked his forehead. "That story."

"So we was waiting for our client to pick 'em up. Night comes 'round, and we're in our bunks. I wake up sometime late, think I might hear someone wandering 'round my ship as shouldn't be. So I get up and go to investigate, and I see there's somebody down in the cargo bay as has pulled the jewelry boxes out of the hatch we was keeping 'em in. I'm just about to tell him to put his hands up, but then he throws open one of the boxes and leaps back, screaming fit to kill."

"Why?" Daiyu asked.

"That's what I wondered. But then my first mate comes running up and gets the lights on, and I see there's this enormous crawling demon-ish thing in the box—"

"Tarantula," Simon interrupted, reaching for another slice of apple. "It's called a tarantula."

"Hey. I'm trying to create a chilling atmosphere here and you're ruining it."

"Oh, I'm sorry to ruin the chilling atmosphere generated by the enormous grin on your face."

Mal rolled his eyes and turned back to Daiyu. "Simon there had a sister as traveled with him. Who knows how, but she'd gotten a whole basket of the tarantula things and put one in every box. Said they'd frighten away any folks as wanted to steal the jewelry, but if we'd not found it out, they'd of frightened away our clients just as fast. But this thief, he ran so fast we couldn't catch up to him, but he was too scared to take nothing, so it turned out alright."

"Except we still had to get rid of the tarantulas," Simon added. "We put on gloves and chased them all over the ship. One of them managed to crawl down Jayne's sleeve—Jayne was on the crew too. It was…unfortunate."

"See, Simon's got this quirk. He spells unfortunate H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S."

Simon gave in and laughed. "Alright, it was pretty hilarious. But don't tell Jayne I said that."

"Speaking of hilarious." Daiyu licked a bit of apple juice off her fingers. "Dr. Tam, I heard two nurses laughing about something you did to an executive from the power plant. What was it?"

"Oh, yes, him." Simon looked embarrassed. "That was highly unprofessional of me."

Mal, noting they'd eaten most of the apple between them, pulled out the other and began cutting it. "Unprofessional? Now this I've just got to hear."

"Yeah, do tell." Daiyu sat forward expectantly.

"Alright. So this power plant executive is very high-up, and as far as I can tell he's got some kind of power-over-doctors obsession. There's absolutely nothing wrong with his eyesight—the ophthalmologist told me that when they used the diagnostic scanner, all the results were perfectly normal—but he kept coming back and insisting that he couldn't see. We only have one doctor who really knows her ophthalmology, and he was taking up far too much of her time."

"So what did you do?" Mal asked.

"It got to the point where he was refusing to let them use the diagnostic scanner because then he couldn't pretend that his eyesight was bad. He claimed it made his eyes sore, so they had to test him with the letter chart—where you look at a poster with letters that get smaller and smaller, and you tell the doctors when you stop being able to read them."

Daiyu nodded. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

"I'd had just about enough of his playacting, so I made a new chart." Simon half-smiled. "The original had random letters and numbers—you know, E, 2, Y, 5, 9, P, K, X, 8, L, 0. My new one said, in very large letters: I HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND JUST HOW MUCH ALL THESE TESTS ARE COSTING YOU."

Mal laughed. "You would. Did it get through his thick skull?"

"He hasn't been back since. We'll see how long he stays away."

Although Mal had intended to remain for twenty minutes at the very most, Daiyu seemed extremely reluctant to let either he or Simon leave, and he had a new appreciation of how dull her life must be generally. If anyone had asked him what it would be like to be stuck in a room for several hours with two Alliance veterans and his former lover, he'd probably have told them to start digging his grave. He'd never have pegged it as tolerable, and he would have laughed his head off if he'd been told it would be fun.

But Daiyu, though her trauma showed through, was quick to laugh and joke at the right moments, and Simon—well, he was Simon. Dryly sarcastic, sharp as a newly-whet knife, and always so gorram ready to help any of them if they showed a sign of needing it. It was certainly true that when Peter woke up and, as he had in the vision Mal had seen with River, began snarling at the Independents in general, Mal found it plenty hard to sit still and not snap back.

He didn't, though. And the look Simon gave him after Peter settled back down—mostly surprise, but with just a bit of new respect—made that worth it.

When four in the afternoon rolled around, Simon got to his feet. "I'm sorry, Daiyu, but I really have to go now. I promised some friends of mine I'd go to their house and help cook before their party tonight."

Mal nodded. "I'd best be off myself. I've a stop I need to make."

"Just glad you've stayed this long." Daiyu took a break from the beading she'd been doing to shake hands. "I've had a far better time this day than I'd ever have guessed could be. Merry Christmas to both of you."

"Right back at you."

"Yes. I'll see you soon."

Back out in the corridor, Simon turned to Mal. "After whatever stop you need to make, I don't suppose you'd consider coming to Kaylee and Inara's house? Kaylee said she invited you to dinner, and I know they'd love to see you."

"Was going to stop by and drop this off at their place." Mal held up the bag he'd carried from the bookshop. "Christmas gifts and all. Wasn't planning to stay, but mayhap I will, for a bit at least."

"You bought Christmas gifts?" Simon stared. "Who are you and how are you incorporeally possessing the body of Malcolm Reynolds?"

"They're mostly what I could dig up at Diogenes's shop. How long do you reckon that man's been sitting on a hedgehog? Give me the doctor's diagnosis."

"In my informed medical opinion, perhaps thirty years," Simon said gravely. "However, it would require a thorough physical examination to be sure, and as that would probably end in me getting my head snapped off, I'm afraid we'll have to accept his condition as chronic."

"I as good as snapped your head off more than once, but you never seemed to accept my condition as chronic." Mal wanted to kick himself, very hard and several times, the moment the words left his mouth. He would inadvertently bring up something listed in his 'Top Ten Conversational Topics to Avoid, Thank You.'

Simon seemed to be considering, but finally spoke. "Maybe that's because I didn't believe it was. Chronic, I mean." He paused. "So. Kaylee and Inara's?"

"Yeah. Let's go."

Mal managed to get to the house without making any more colossal blunders, which was just about another Christmas miracle. At Simon's knock, quick footsteps sounded on the other side of the door, and Inara opened it, wearing a chocolate-smeared apron with her hair tied under a kerchief, a pot in one hand. "Simon, I'm so glad you're here. We're going just slightly—Mal?"

"Yeah." Mal cleared his throat. "Merry Christmas, 'Nara. If how I acted yesterday ain't scared you off entirely, well, I'd be glad to join you for dinner. If you'll have me."

Something slammed into Mal's chest very hard, and for half a second he thought Inara had thrown the pot at him. Then he realized he was being enthusiastically hugged by a beaming and flour-dusted Kaylee. "Knew you'd come 'round to it, Captain! Get in here and help us all finish cookin'. You too, Simon. Somethin's most likely boiled over while we're out here greetin' you all."

Before he was quite aware of what went on, Mal found himself in Kaylee and Inara's steamy and messy kitchen, cutting broccoli. Simon had been likewise pressed into service continuing Kaylee's custard mixing, while she and Inara debated over how much longer their roast needed to cook.

"Another fifteen minutes at least," Inara insisted.

"But we gotta check on it afore then," Kaylee argued. "Gotta make sure there's some rare parts, for those as like 'em."

"There's an increased risk of food-borne illness with rare cuts of meat," Simon called as he cracked an egg. "I would cook it twenty minutes."

"Oh, quiet, you." Kaylee flapped a hand at him. "It'd taste like brick."

"Well, I don't know." Mal reached for another head of broccoli. "I happen to be real fond of the taste of brick. Reminds me of the good old days, when we ate just protein."

"You are all hopeless." Simon measured out a cup of sugar. "When you get sick, don't come crying to me."

"You're a doctor," Kaylee reminded him. "Folks are supposed to come cryin' to you when they take sick."

Jayne turned up not long after to lend a hand—or to steal some extra food, it was at times hard to tell the difference. For a good hour, Mal was sure any meal they managed to cook would be more like a grenade explosion than a Christmas dinner. Kaylee put her elbow in a dish of butter and managed to smear it over most of the counters afore she realized what was going on. Inara's skirt got badly singed in the apparently annual stove-gets-lit-on-fire, and then got ripped from the knee down when she shut it in a cupboard. Simon dropped an egg on the floor and then slipped on it, nearly knocking over the table in the process. Jayne, who'd been cutting the ends off the beans, accidentally dumped the ends into the boiling water instead of the beans. As for Mal, he gestured just a bit too wildly to make a point and sent the pear he was holding straight out the window they'd opened to let the smoke out.

But in truth, Mal wouldn't of cared if they'd had naught to eat at all. He was with his crew, as much as was possible, and he didn't intend to waste the chance he'd been given.

Somehow, incredibly, impossibly, they got the dinner ready to hit the table when the guests came, got said table set, even to Inara's I-like-it-fancy standards, and managed to make themselves presentable. Jayne promptly took initiative at this point. "Right, now that we ain't lookin' like we got in a fight with a kitchen and lost, what's that?" He pointed at the package Mal had dropped by the door in the chaos. "Presents?"

"Jayne!" Kaylee elbowed him. "That's rude!"

"He's guessed right. It is." Mal took up the package and opened it, handing the gifts to their respective folks. Diogenes had agreed to provide individual wrapping for the books only with much grumbling and swearing, and seemed to have, in revenge, used far, far too much tape. Jayne, who was arguably the most aggressive of the group, managed to get his present unwrapped first. "What the hell's this? Illustrated Kama Sutra? What's that mean?" Inara and Simon, who both apparently knew exactly what the Kama Sutra was, groaned and covered their faces.

"Just open it," Mal told him.

Jayne, frowning, did as he said. "Is it some scholarly muck? 'Cause Mal, you know I ain't—oh." His eyes went wide. "Oh."

Kaylee tilted her head. "What's it about?"

"Sex," replied Inara, Mal, and Jayne at the same time.

"Not solely," Simon protested. "That's a common misconception. It also has sections on the acquisition of knowledge, forms of marriage, how to choose courtesans—"

Jayne send him an exasperated look. "Don't you know anythin' useful?"

Simon rolled his eyes. "Fine. It also describes, in total, sixty-four types of sexual acts. Happy now?"

"Sixty-four? Shiny. Thanks, Mal."

Kaylee tore the paper off her package. "Ooh. History of early space travel! 'Nara, there's diagrams of the ship parts!" She began examining one of the pages.

Inara eased the paper off the book Mal had gotten her. "Why, thank you, Mal. The Silver Lantern?"

"Set on Sihnon." Mal shrugged. "Knew you grew up there." Of all the folk, he'd really had the least idea of what to buy for Inara.

"Huh." Jayne glanced up from his book. "Ain't you already got that one? I saw you readin' it last time I was here."

"Jayne." Inara raised an eyebrow. "It's the thought that counts."

"Thought don't pay much. Unless it's the thought that goes through someone's head when I'm holdin' a gun to it and demandin' coin."

Mal sighed. He couldn't win them all.

"Come on, get yours open!" Kaylee poked Simon, who was still struggling with the tape. "That paper ain't made of gold. Just rip it."

"Alright, alright." Simon yanked at the wrapping, pulled his book out, and stared.

"Coleridge?" Inara moved to see better. "Ah, yes. Rime of the Ancient Mariner. That one's a touch dark for me, but it does have beautiful imagery. Oh, and it's illustrated."

"What are those?" Kaylee pointed to the image on the cover. "Green and blue and gold…they look like snakes. And what's that bird?"

"They're called water-snakes in the poem. And that's the albatross." Simon smoothed the cover of the book.

A knock sounded on the door, and Inara hastily stowed her new book on a shelf. "They're here. Kaylee, you can study those diagrams all you want later."

Kaylee set her book away. "Come on, Jayne. That could be Amrita, who we told you about."

"Oh, yeah?" Jayne tucked his own book in his pocket. "Now, there's a proper notion." He followed the two women into the hall.

Simon was still staring at the illustrated Rime of the Ancient Mariner as if he'd not seen the printed word in ten years. It made Mal a mite nervous, in truth. "It ain't studded with diamonds or nothing. It was just there, and I only remembered—"

"Yes, you remembered, and there's nothing 'only' about that. Frankly, I thought you'd try and forget."

"I did. It didn't work."

"Oh." Simon hesitated a moment, then reached into his pocket. "I actually have something of yours that you might want back. I've—very much appreciated—I mean, it's meant a great deal to me. So much so that I didn't return it when I probably should have." He held out Becca's harmonica.

"No, keep that." Mal weren't sure where exactly the words were coming from, but he knew he meant them. "Was always yours, no need to feel bad for keeping it."

Simon didn't say a thing, but he looked at Mal, and there was something in his face Mal knew, because he was feeling it himself.

Hope.

OoOoO

River hovered in that nether-space of one who loves too much in this 'verse to quite leave it. "'O Wedding-Guest, this soul hath been alone on a wide, wide sea, so lonely 'twas that God himself scarce seemed there to be.'"

"You know," Becca remarked from beside her. "There's times I find you just a bit puzzling, Miss River."

"Not uncommon." River winked. "'He prayeth best who loveth best, all things both great and small.'"

"Now, that I get." Becca watched her brother. "You think they'll be alright? Mal, and all your crew?"

Book, behind them, smiled. "There's no way to know for sure, but I think so. As Wash would say, they're leaves on the wind. We'll watch how they soar."