A.N. Just FYI, the children’s current ages are… Zoë - 13; Cole – 7; Jamie and Genny – 6; Michael – 5. Also, you may want to grab a fresh tissue and a bottle of angst-be-gone.

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PART 28: HE SAT IN THE RAIN

Thunder rumbled and he awoke in the Valley, surrounded by the scent of war, blood, and gunpowder. He shivered as the wind assaulted his rain-soaked skin. Lightning lit up the sky like the exploding shells of cannon fire, followed by the aftershock of more thunder. The only hope he had of making it out was Zoë, leaning right back against him, keeping his head out of the mud so he didn’t drown in his sleep. As the thunder rolled, he barely heard her whisper through the rain. “I’m with you.” Sweet words of reassurance. Her hand on his shoulder, she pulled him into an embrace; he rested his head against hers and breathed in her presence, as close as the air. Not Zoë. Mal opened his eyes to find Inara, clad in a soft, cotton dress, sitting in the puddle next to him. The memory of Zoë faded, her warm body becoming the cold, metal hull of Serenity on his back. Carefully, Mal tented Zoë’s browncoat so that it shielded both him and Inara from the wind. He closed his eyes again, wishing for his old friend, finding only his wife. Inara held Zoë’s vest in one hand, and rain spilled on it like tears. “Why would she say that?” Mal asked, knowing that Inara had already spoken to Little Zoë, and had likely issued a swift, but fair punishment. “She’s a teenager, Mal. They fight dirty. Get used to it; we have two more to go.” “They don’t have the same bullets as her. Can’t hit me the same way she does.” “True. I’m sure they’ll find newer and lower ways to hit you.” “But they’re my own,” Mal pointed out. “If I don’t like ‘em, I can shoot ‘em and try again.” “She’s yours too,” Inara replied firmly. Mal swallowed his tears. Inara hadn’t seen him crying since Zoë died, and this seemed like such a minor spat next to the woes of that day. Little Zoë had hit his one great fear and insecurity – that his friend’s trust had been misplaced. He’d trade his life and all the happiness he’d had since just to be able to give Little Zoë her mother back. The one thing he wanted most to give her was the one thing he never could. “It’s my fault her momma’s gone,” Mal confessed weakly, at which Inara held him tighter. “You didn’t pull the trigger.” “She was gonna leave the ship to raise her. She was …” Mal pressed his lips together, his guilt rising like bile. “I didn’t want to say goodbye. It’s the only reason she was still there when it happened. I tried keepin’ her on the ship. Out of harm’s way.” “She could be stubborn,” Inara consoled, but it only fueled his anger. It wasn’t Zoë’s fault! “Little Zoë was right. She wasn’t thinkin’ about her baby or herself. She was thinkin’ about me. She was comin’ to help me. She was … shot … All’s the sudden, she was the one needin’ carryin’… If I’d just let her go when she asked…” “Then you’d be the one dead.” Inara’s hand touched his cheek, catching the tears that he was not yet brave enough to let fall. He turned his head toward her hand, kissing her palm, accepting her comfort. “I’d take death any day to give Little Zoë her momma back. I told Simon to save her, but she told him to save the baby.” Inara’s hand grazed through his wet hair, pulling his forehead to touch hers. “She died for five thousand credits.” Mal shook his head in disgust. “Five. Thousand.” “I doubt she saw it that way. She died for you.” “I don’t know that I’m worth her life.” “She thought you were. She thought Little Zoë was.” Mal took the brown vest from Inara and turned it over in his hands, trying to see past the woman who had worn it and into the girl who was wearing it now. His wife kept silent and he watched as the rain soaked through her hair, leaving it limp and plastered to the side of her face. With a shivered sigh, he came to his senses, realizing that his limbs were going numb from the cold, falling rain. “Don’t think the Doc will treat me so well if I get pneumonia.” “He wasn’t going to let her go,” Inara informed quietly. “I know. He told me.” Inara pulled away, shooting him a quizzical look. “Then why does he have a black eye?” “He told me after,” Mal qualified. His legs stiff, Mal came resolutely to standing, then reached out a hand to help Inara up. “Come on, you’ll ruin your dress.” Inara smiled, patting the soft, patterned, fabric as she stood. “Actually, this one is yours.”

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PART 29: HE WAS SICK

Genevieve Tam was blessed with the same hazel eyes as her mother, the same ironic wit as her father, and unfortunately this week, the same head cold as Mal. Jamie called her ‘sarca-cystic’, Cole called her ‘hi-larious’. Mal came upon her in the lounge just outside the Infirmary, coughing up a lung, just as he was unhappily doing the same. “Hey, darlin’,” Mal greeted tiredly, picking the six-year-old up, and carrying her into the Infirmary. “What are you doin’ up?” “Can’t you tell? I’m trying to wake the dead.” Mal cleared his raw throat and gave a mock laugh. “Sarcasm ain’t cute, Little Genny.” “Say it with a straight face and I might believe you,” she retorted tiredly, her feet dangling off the counter when Mal set her down to root around for cough suppressant. Mal messed up her tawny hair with a smile. Sarcasm wasn’t cute on Simon, but it was absolutely adorable on her. Genny broke into a fit of coughing again and Mal found some mentholated goop to rub on her neck. Despite the soothing effect, he still went in search of the cough syrup and took a stingingly unpleasant swig for himself when he found it. He checked the label to see if this particular bottle was suitable for Genny, too. Coughing as much as she was, her throat was bound to be raw. “Didn’t your daddy give you something to get through the night?” “He trusts his medicine too much.” “Were you goin’ to get him when I came down?” “I …” she shook her head, a lock of damp, brown hair falling over her eyes. Mal ran a cloth under cool water and wiped the perspiration from her face. She seemed so feverish. “I threw up,” she confessed, meekly. “Ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed about. I been a might queasy myself,” he admitted. “But you didn’t throw up.” “No, grown-up stomachs are a mite stronger –” Mal stopped seeing her chin drop. More than anything, Genny hated being called weak. Made sense being around the boys all the time, and then having Zoë already twice her size. She’d gotten more than one scar trying to prove her worth, no matter how many reassurances they gave that she didn’t need to. When she started coughing again, Mal scooped her in his arms and paced the room, rubbing her back, whispering soothes that the medicine couldn’t give. He pressed the call to Simon – a button Kaylee had installed shortly after she and Simon started bunking together, so he wouldn’t feel so bad about being far from the Infirmary. As the number of children grew, so had the number of buttons in this area directly linking the children to their parents. Little Zoë called them ‘miracle’ buttons, probably in reference to one of the stories Jayne had told her. Genny hiccupped, her head resting on Mal’s shoulder. With a soft chuckle, she mused, “Now that all my dinner is flushed down the toilet, I feel hungry again.” Mal suppressed a laugh, which became a cough, then a laugh again. He remembered when Little Zoë was six. He could handle six. Why couldn’t Little Zoë be six again?

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PART 30: HE WAS PROUD

Mal knocked on Little Zoë’s door, letting her know that the others were getting ready to go into town. She’d been confined to the ship for the last two worlds, but her punishment was over now – a fact Mal was probably more glad of than she. He’d asked Jayne once how long a girl could stay mad, and wasn’t comforted at all when Jayne told him about his cousin, who’d stayed mad at her folks for five years before showing up on their doorstep pregnant, broke, and abandoned by some hun dan boyfriend. “Most important thing is to love her all the way through it, and be there for her when she comes to her senses,” Jayne told him. Of all the things to be wise in, Mal never would have guessed Jayne so wise in family, but apparently he came from a large one and had seen just about everything. Zoë was absolutely rigid with teen angst these days. She’d taken back her mother’s vest, but in doing so seemed to reject the rest of them. The only ones that warranted any familial address these days were her little brothers. Over the weeks, she’d gone from calling him Baba Mal to just Mal, and it stung like venom. He could only pray that Jayne was right and that she’d come to her senses soon – before she killed him. “Hey, Zo, whatcha doin’?” Zoë sat on her bed, knees bent, supporting clipboard on which she was writing furiously. “I’m writing letters to my congressman.” Mal furrowed his brow. “Zo, you don’t have a congressman.” “Gramma Washburne does. She said she’d send it for me.” Recently, Little Zoë had been seeking out her extended family and was disappointed to find them few and far between. He had taken her around the circuit of grandfolks when she was a baby and had offered to take her again a few weeks ago. Her response to him had been a polite thank you, but Michael had let it slip one morning that she was really excited about seeing them all again – all two that were still alive. He knew she had a right to love her blood family and to know them, but still it stung. “This a letter about that eugenics bill?” She nodded, not answering. Inara told him it was important to show interest in knowing even when she showed no interest in sharing. Still, he could only last so long before his heart broke into a million pieces, and he needed his wits around him today to do business. “Your Mama’s gettin’ the entourage together, leavin’ for town in about ten minutes. You want to go with them?” Even though she no longer called Inara ‘Mama ‘Nara’, he wasn’t giving in to her distance. Little Zoë was family, no two ways about it. She may be confused, thinking her family was some place else and she was an orphan all alone, but he wasn’t confused. “I suppose I can finish these for the next world,” Zoë sighed, putting her papers down and going in search of her shoes. “Not like we’re runnin’ out of people to exploit.” When she came past him out the door, he put a hand on her shoulder, working hard to control his breathing. “Keep fightin’ your battles, Little Zoë. I’m proud of you for what you’re doin’.” She considered him, her features expressionless, but at least her eyes weren’t angry. “Thanks.”

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Giving Chase