I hope the fact that this is a long chapter will help make up for the fact that I have been up to my ears lately, and unable to get this thing posted in a timely way.

17. You'd Be Conferring And Planning And Plotting And Possibly Scheming.

Mal paused outside Inara’s shuttle, and pressed the annunciator.

The hatch slid open, and Inara’s voice said from inside “Since when do you knock?”

“Since I come begging,” Mal said, walking into the shuttle. He was reminded, when he saw the interior, that Inara had left the training house with nothing but the clothes on her back and a trunk of things she’d left behind. He’d need to get her to the training house, and soon, even if she intended to stay with Serenity. She ought to at least have the opportunity to get her things. But taking her to the training house was risky. Not just because of their fugitive status; if he took her there, she might decide to stay.

“Begging for what?” she said. She’d been cleaning, trying even in the absence of her personal effects, to put the shuttle to rights, and she was dressed as he had never seen her – in clothes borrowed from Kaylee, with her hair tied up under a scarf.

“I -- ” he was distracted by her appearance; even in dishabille, she turned him about. He collected himself. “I want a new ship for Christmas, and I can’t afford it.”

“A new ship?” Inara said, amused. “Mal, you’re going to die on Serenity. You’ve already tried it more than once.”

“I know it. I just want this other ship so I can give it to somebody else,” he said.

“We’re talking about the Firefly on Beaumonde, aren’t we?” she said. Inara composed herself on the shuttle’s bare bench. Mal thought he had never seen any human being move with such grace. For her, it ought to be a right downy bench, not what it was.

But the only compliment he offered her was, “Smart woman.”

“You think it’s going to help us out of our current predicament somehow?”

“I do. But not if I can’t get my hands on it,” he said. “In some way don’t bring the law down on my head all over again.”

Inara nodded. “That’s a lot of money,” she observed.

“I know it. And I know you’re the only person right now that I can go to who might have it.”

“Well. Not on me,” she said. “And we are, of course, talking about a loan.”

“Of course,” Mal said quickly.

“Because you mentioned Christmas presents,” Inara said. “So I just wanted to be clear.”

“Absolutely,” Mal said.

“We may have to renegotiate the terms of our existing agreement, to accommodate this,” Inara suggested.

Mal nodded, and wondered what she was going to demand of him.

**

Wash woke up in his own bunk, with Zoe lying next to him, and thought Now, that’s an improvement. Definitely better than hospital beds, and coffins couldn’t hold a candle to waking up like this. This Cat lay snugged in between them, purring as Zoe stroked her fur. Wash could feel the cat’s body vibrate against his side.

Zoe was fully dressed and fully awake; apparently she’d just been watching him sleep. Well, that was certainly an impulse he understood. Wash smiled.

Zoe returned his smile. “How are you feeling?”

“Fantastic!” he said fervently.

“I meant physically,” she said, amused.

“Oh, that. Well, if I could feel a little less, I’d feel a lot better,” he acknowledged.

“Simon left some pain pills for you,” she said. “And the captain would like to see you on the bridge, soon as you’re feeling up to it.”

“Good old Mal. So generous with that ‘take all the time you need’ offer.”

“Well,” Zoe said, ever practical, “there is still the small matter of the Alliance trying to hunt us down and kill us that needs to be dealt with.”

“So I don’t get any sick leave after all?”

“I don’t think Mal expects you to fly just yet,” Zoe said, “But he does need you to take a look at something.”

Wash sighed. “Get me those pain pills, then.” But when she made a move to go, he reached out to stop her -- ow -- and drew her close for a kiss.

She kissed him back, and then kissed his forehead lightly before going to bring him one of Simon’s pills and some water.

Wash discovered quickly that he was extremely stiff, extremely sore, and extremely filthy – at least, the places Zoe hadn’t been able to get to while he slept. But thanks to Zoe’s further ministrations, he soon looked and smelled considerably more human and less ghastly than when he’d come aboard. Zoe was very gentle, except after she’d cleaned the remaining blood out of his hair, and let it dry a little bit, when she said, “Wait, I just need to do this,” and had mussed his hair with both hands, not roughly, and careful of his stitches, but more roughly than she’d done anything else since he’d returned. She sat back and looked at her work, and smiled. “That’s more like it,” she said, and he frowned at her, but didn’t ask.

She brought him some clothes, and he pulled on a pair of pants and, with her help, a shirt, over the top of the bandages that swathed his torso. Shoes, he wasn’t sure he could do – bending was not on his list of things to get excited about at the moment – but Zoe helped him there, too, and she spotted him as he hauled himself up the ladder. In the corridor, she wrapped her arm around his waist, and he wrapped his arm around her even though he didn’t really feel like he needed to, and let her help him up to the bridge.

Mal sat in the pilot’s chair, watching the various readouts. He turned as they came up the steps. “Wash,” he said, as Wash slowly sat in the copilot’s chair, “Good to have you breathing.”

Wash managed a weak smile. He glanced out of the cockpit windows, and wondered where they were. On the ground someplace, but the surroundings looked odd. It was a small-craft hangar, but only the emergency lights were on. Wash didn’t think it looked like one of their more common haunts, although it did look familiar.

“Need you to take a look at something,” Mal said, and Wash nodded fractionally. He turned to the screen on the copilot’s panel, which flickered to life with a broadwave archive record. Wash was surprised to see himself, and the man who’d interrogated him on the destroyer.

The two men on the screen started talking. “Hey,” Wash said, “Is that the guy?”

“Yeah,” Mal replied.

“He doesn’t sound like me,” Wash said.

“Sure he does,” Mal said. “Sounds just like you.”

“No he doesn’t.”

Mal frowned at him. “You never heard yourself on a recording before?”

“No. And I guess I haven’t yet,” Wash observed.

Mal shook his head. “What I need to know is, have you ever seen that other fellow before?”

“Sure. He’s the one who questioned me yesterday, on the destroyer.”

“Day before yesterday, had to have been,” Mal corrected.

“Oh,” Had he really lost a whole day? Had he really only lost a day? “I thought he was going to kill me.”

“What about this one?” The screen shifted, showing Wash’s double and an Alliance officer.

Wash shook his head. “Never laid eyes on him.”

“All right,” Mal said, and punched the intercom. “River, it’s the one from the first ‘wave.”

River’s voice came through the speaker. “Copy that,” she said.

Wash sat watching the replay on his screen. “Ai ya,” he muttered. “Mal. Zoe! Tell me you knew that couldn’t have been me!” He looked up at them imploringly. They glanced at each other, and Wash was horrified. “I could never do that!” Wash protested.

“We didn’t have any other explanation, right at first,” Mal said.

“But . . . Zoe . . .?”

“I told River you would never do a thing like that,” Zoe said, her voice heavy with remembered anger.

“Actually, Zoe was about ready to garrotte River for just suggesting that you could have done something like that,” Mal said. “But we were all a little confused – even River, I think – until we got it straightened out.”

Sickened, Wash cut the playback.

“Got it,” River said, from wherever she was. “Terrence Coles. Commander. Served in the war. Got his complete service record right here. You want anything else?”

“Everything but the kitchen sink. Once you’ve got it, come on back,” Mal said.

Wash realized what was bothering him about the surroundings, besides the emergency lighting. There were no people. Any time they put in at a facility like this one, there were usually people about.

“We’re not on Miranda, are we?” he asked.

“Miranda! No!” Mal said. “I’d have open mutiny, I tried to take us back there. This is Mr. Universe’s complex. Or was, anyway. I sent River down to his backup array to do some hacking, and Kaylee’s supposed to be replacing our comms stuff.”

“Oh,” Wash said. He tried to picture what had taken place here: his double, the man in the ‘wave record, crash-landing his ship in pieces; Zoe watching him die with a reaver harpoon pinning him to the chair . . . he looked up at her, and she smiled and tousled his hair. “So this is the place, huh?” he said, and she nodded.

“You okay?” he asked her.

“Shiny,” she said lightly, and he knew he’d get no more out of her. She laid a hand on his shoulder, and he placed his own over hers.

**

Jayne finished drilling the holes Kaylee had marked, and squared his shoulders, setting the drill aside. He looked at the boxy piece of equipment, and asked "So what is this, anyway?"

"Sensor array," Kaylee said. "Better'n what we got. Actually, it's probably better'n anything the Alliance has got, except maybe on their newest ships or ground installations." Her smile faded. "Mr. Universe only had the very best stuff."

"I thought we were just fixing comms," Jayne said, stretching.

"We did; those are better'n new too. But I thought since this was here, and nobody using it, and we had some extra time -- might as well!"

Jayne picked the array up and hefted it to the spot Kaylee had cleared for it, where their old sensor array had been. "Turn it on its side, I need to hook it up," she instructed.

Jayne did as ordered, then hooked the old sensor array to the crane and swung it off Serenity's hull.

Mal’s voice came through the intercom: “Finish up, everybody. Meet in the dining room, we got plans to make.”

**

The crew of Serenity sat around their table, hemmed in by the boxes of looted foodstuffs. “All right,” Mal said. “Seems the Alliance is going to track us to the farthest reaches of space, ‘til they get their vengeance over the Miranda thing. Which is kinda putting a crimp in our operations, at present; one of the reasons for being in this business we’re in is that we don’t really care to live the way the Alliance would tell us to. Which we’ll sure have to do, if they get their hands on us. That, or die the way they tell us to. So we got to get the Alliance off our backs some way.”

“And you got some kind of brilliant plan to do this?” Jayne asked.

“As it happens,” Mal said. “I do. And the Alliance has left us just what we need to do the job. Back in that scrapyard on Beaumonde.”

“Another firefly would sure be a helluva decoy,” Zoe said.

“Expensive decoy,” Simon observed.

“Plus there’s the small matter of we can’t really show our faces on Beaumonde right now,” Jayne added.

“Not all of us,” Mal said. “But we got two people on this ship whose faces ain’t plastered on wanted posters all over the Cortex,” Mal said, glancing significantly at Inara and Wash. “And how fortunate for us that they happen to be a registered Companion, and her wealthy client.”

Wash perked up. “Wealthy client? Hey, I like this plan already,” he said, as a grin spread slowly across his face.

Zoe slapped him companionably on the back, and the grin disappeared into a grimace.

Inara said to Zoe, “Don’t worry. I know just how ‘wealthy’ he really is,” and was rewarded with a smile from Zoe, and a pained look from Wash.

“Lot less wealthy than I was,” he muttered. Zoe ignored him, but Jayne grinned evilly. Wash tossed an empty mug at Jayne’s head. Jayne caught it easily, never losing his grin.

“So how we gonna pay for this ship-sized decoy?” Jayne said, turning the mug in his hands. “’Cause I’m pretty sure I got more money than anybody on this ship right now,” he said, watching Wash’s face all the while, “and it ain’t near enough to buy another boat.”

“Strange how nobody’s suggesting that you should pose as Inara’s wealthy client,” Wash said.

“That’s ‘cause I’m a wanted fugitive, on account of having put the whole damn Parliament in an uproar,” Jayne shot back. “What have you done lately, little man, besides get yourself kidnapped? Oh, and rescued. By me.”

“Whatever cred you had with me for helping find my man, you’re spending mighty fast,” Zoe warned him.

“Enough,” Mal said irritably. “We got work to do. Inara’s agreed to help us out.”

“I have a line of credit I can draw on that will be enough,” Inara confirmed.

“We owe you,” Mal acknowledged. “If this plan works, and we get the Alliance off our backs and can finally fence some of what’s in the cargo bay, I hope to be able to pay you back.” Inara made a dismissive gesture. “So. We’re going to drop Wash and Inara on Beaumonde, and they’re going to get us that other ship. Wash, be sure to see Simon before you go.”

Wash nodded.

“The rest of you, except Inara, see Simon as soon as you can. He’s going to get a DNA sample from each of you.”

“I am?” Simon said.

“You are. Plus anything else that might constitute positive identification on a body that’s not the body itself. Blood, and such.”

“Whatever you say,” Simon said, frowning.

“What are the rest of us going to do?” Jayne asked.

“We got a quick stop to make on Sihnon, and then we need to pick up Inara's things at the training house. After that, we'll rendezvous with Wash and Inara -- you'll probably beat us there,” Mal said.

“Sihnon!” Kaylee said. “We sure can’t show our faces on Sihnon!”

"We won't be there long," Mal said. "Just long enough for me to mail something, and one other thing.”

“What other thing?” Jayne asked.

Mal grinned. “We’re going to give our friend Commander Coles the bird,” he said.

**

Wash sat in the copilot’s chair with This Cat sitting in his lap, and watched as River prepped the ship for takeoff. She reached over her head and flipped the three switches that initiated the takeoff sequence – they had specific names and functions, of course, but Wash always simply thought of them as lights, camera, and action. The ship jumped.

“You learned to fly from me,” he observed.

She smiled at him. “You were working when everybody else was off the ship, or else not doing anything interesting. And it was easier, then, to be inside someone else’s head than it was to be inside my own.”

“If you’d learned in any proper flight school, you’d know the takeoff sequence I normally use isn’t the textbook sequence for this craft,” Wash said, scratching This Cat behind the ears. She rumbled appreciatively.

“I know,” she said, grasping the controls and lifting the ship into the air.

Still a little rough, Wash noted. But still and all, not bad for a kid. “I do it that way because there are so many times when we need to get in the air the second everybody’s aboard.”

“I know,” River said, smiling sideways at him.

“Well, sure, but what you need to know besides that is that if you’re not careful about it, you could wind up flipping the ship on her back like some helpless turtle, doing it that way.”

“I’ll watch out for that,” she promised solemnly.

Zoe came onto the bridge, and looked sternly at Wash. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”

“I am resting,” he said. “River’s doing all the work.”

“He’s teaching me to be a better pilot,” River said mischievously.

“I imagine resting as something a little more . . . horizontal,” Zoe said. “With pillows. And without flying lessons.”

Wash glanced apologetically at River. “Orders,” he said. “She is the first mate, after all.” He stood up slowly. This Cat jumped lightly down from his lap.

“Also not the kind of ‘mate’ I was thinking of right now,” Zoe teased.

“Hey! There are children present!” Wash scolded.

“Who’s the other one?” River asked.

“You can’t guess?” Zoe replied.

“I’m right here,” Wash protested.

Zoe laughed, and followed him to their bunk. Inside, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him deeply.

“Thought I was supposed to rest,” he murmured into her hair.

“I thought we might do a little resting together,” she said.

He smiled at her, but didn’t miss the shadow that passed across her face.

“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” he said.

“No, I –“ she turned away.

“Yes, you.” He turned her back to face him. “I don’t like having this between us.”

“Neither do I.” She wouldn’t look at him. “Wash – remember when you saw him giving up our safe harbors to the Alliance, on the ‘wave? I really did know you could never do that. I need to know . . . that you know . . .”

“I do,” he said bravely, lifting her face to his. And discovered, to his surprise, that he really did. “Zoe, the man was an Alliance officer. I could see you getting tired of me, maybe, at some point . . . but not so you could take up with a gorram Alliance officer!”

“True,” she said. “About the officer, not about getting tired of you.”

“So, see, if you’d known --“

“I would have shot him.”

“And you sure wouldn’t have – “ he still couldn’t say it. “He knew, though. He for sure knew. Coles made it pretty clear when he questioned me that the Alliance knows all about you and me, so their spy had to have known. Must not have bothered him much.”

Zoe stared at the floor.

“You know,” Wash continued, “there’s a word for nonconsensual sex, and it isn’t a pretty one.”

Zoe shifted uncomfortably. “I never thought about it in those terms,” she said.

“Neither did I, until just this minute. But I think it fits. And I think that’s why it’s been bugging me.” Zoe didn’t respond. “I say a reaver harpoon was too good for the guy. I say he should have had to look you in the eye and hear you call him what he really was, just before you fed him to the reavers, alive.”

Zoe still wouldn’t look at him. He lifted her face to his. “This isn’t between you and me anymore. This is between us and them. Right?”

She nodded, still uncertain, but willing to trust him. She wrapped her arms around him and nestled her face against his neck. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

“Not sure I can stand to let you out of my sight again.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“You better be.”

“Or what, you’re going to punch me again?”

“Oh, I’ll do much worse to you than that,” she said.

Wash laughed. And kissed her. And more.