When she joined him at the helm, River looked perturbed.
It was fairly charming, actually, though Mal wasn't about to say that. Not like he had to, anyway; she could hear what he was thinking, if she wanted.
Her lips quirked, as though in a smile, but she kept them down, resolute. "You don't have a brother. Makes you the lucky one."
Mal considered that. "Some might say otherwise. What'd he do?"
"Won't let me join the fun." Even as she pouted, she was settling in to her chair, checking gauges and switches, ready to take her shift. Had to admire that.
"And what fun might that be?" Hard to imagine what kind of entertainment Simon had found, aboard ship, that he wouldn't let River in on. Hell, it was hard to imagine what kind of entertainment he'd found, period. No one had the heart for ballgames without the Shepherd and Wash; wasn't a whole lot to do, out here in the black, 'cept each other.
Each other. "Gao yang jong duh goo yang!"
"Not fair. They should share."
Mal had a momentary flash of image—River, Kaylee, Simon, in the altogether, hands moving—and squelched it as fast as he humanly could. "That ain't right. You don't do that with a sibling."
River rolled her eyes. "I know that. I'm not after Simon."
Kaylee? Was River—he'd always thought she was—well, he hadn't thought about it, exactly --
"I'm not sly, either." River turned to him, her face patient, like she was explaining something to a child. "I just don't see why they get to have all the fun and I don't get to have any."
Mal looked out at the empty vastness of space, and for an instant wished he were out there in it instead of in here trying to have a talk about the birds and the bees with his crazy copilot.
"Have you ever even seen a bee?" River sounded disgusted.
"Meimei, I—"
"I just wish everybody didn't think I was so broken." This time she didn't look at him. Her voice sounded small, like it used to.
"You're not broken," he said, automatically.
"Tell that to my brother."
"That's not why he turned you down."
"But it's why you will."
Mal had no words, only gaped at her.
"Go to bed," she said, after a long minute.
And he did.
He had hoped it was a weird quirk of conversation, one of River's tangents raised once and then forgotten. No such luck. Apparently he'd done something really terrible in a previous life, committed some grievous sin that required a lot of atoning, because the next night River brought it up again.
"You don't want to talk about it, but you wouldn't be taking advantage of me." She sounded matter-of-fact.
"No. No, we are not having this conversation," Mal said, firmly.
"Connotes power manipulating the powerless. But I'm stronger than you are. Fight better than you do, too."
"Now, wait one minute," Mal began.
"You can't shoot with your eyes closed."
She had a point, at that. Wait, no, she absolutely did not. "That's not relevant."
"You trust me with Serenity," River said, low and urgent.
"Sir?" Zoe's head appeared in the doorway.
"Thank God," Mal muttered. "Come in."
"I'm not sure I trust Badger's contact enough to sell to him."
"Neither do I." Funny, the relief he felt discussing the dicey prospects of unloading the goods they'd gone to considerable lengths to smuggle. They didn't sell these, weren't gonna be able to fuel up at Bai He-Hua. But this conversation was preferable to the other one. The one he and River were not having.
Beside him, River snorted.
"Do we have any leads on another buyer?" Zoe asked.
"Well, there's the guy from the pearl heist," Mal said, dubiously.
"Not a good idea, 'less you're looking to get shot. Again." Zoe's lips tightened.
River tapped an inquiry into the cortex, then tilted the screen their way. "Abbey on the southern island. Sell them there."
"Stolen goods to a bunch of shepherds?"
River said simply, "They won't cheat us."
"Guess not," Mal said, reluctantly impressed.
"See? I have good ideas." River was smiling to herself, a little smug and a little bubbly. Thinking, no doubt, about her other ideas. The ones that involved him.
"Uh-uh. No way. Am I clear?" Mal stood. "I'm going to check on the grub."
As he left, he heard her saying to Zoe, plaintively, "He thinks I'm broken." He tried to ignore the way her tone tugged at his heart.
The abbot was pleased with their cargo, and paid almost as much as it would have been worth had the protein bars been legally-acquired. They shook hands as one of the younger shepherds brought a paper-wrapped package aboard: apples, Mal guessed, based on the look of their orchard.
"We surely do miss brother Book," the abbot said, quietly.
"He—he was here?" It knocked the wind out of him, imagining the shepherd here. He could've still been alive, if he'd come to a place like this...
"Most of us didn't have the pleasure of residing with him, but he was an old friend. You meant a lot to him."
"Not half so much as he meant to us," Mal managed.
The abbot lifted a hand in farewell, smiling. "Come and see us again some time."
"We surely will." The gangplank rose and locked shut, and Serenity rose up through the atmosphere.
"Cap'n! We got peaches!" Kaylee bounded over, a ripe fruit in her hand.
He smiled at her, the renewed pain of loss receding. "Might have to make a pie."
"Aw, my momma never taught me piecrust," Kaylee said, regretfully.
Mal pretended shock. "What kind of mechanic are you, can't make a piecrust?"
"Best in the 'verse," she said, brightly. "You said so your ownself."
"Reckon I did," Mal admitted.
"I can handle a simple pastry dough," Simon said, from the door of the infirmary. "If we have butter."
Mal gestured toward their stores, newly-restocked. "All yours, Doc."
"Ooh, peach pie," Kaylee said, and tugged Simon into the galley. "I'll help."
Mal was smiling to himself as he climbed the steps to the bridge. "Nice work, little albatross."
"I'm setting a course for Kohelet." She didn't acknowledge the praise, which was fine by him; he knew she'd heard it, which was all that mattered.
"Dandy. Guess you don't need me up here, then." Mal turned.
"Need you," River repeated, softly.
The words sparked up his spine, bringing images with them. River, pale skin and dark hair, spread across his bunk. Head thrown back. Saying those very words.
Mal shook his head, angrily. Worst of it was, he couldn't be sure whether the images came from his own mind, or from hers. "This ain't okay. Do you understand me? This has to stop."
"Hasn't even started," River said.
"I cannot do this." He turned and walked away, his boots feeling too loud against the plating of the deck.
He did his damnedest to ignore his new mental image, of her sitting there at the helm, alone.
The pie was delicious. Jayne broke out a bottle of wine, and as they sat around the table, the seven of them, it almost felt like family again, even with the extra chairs pushed empty into other rooms.
River ignored him, talking to Simon and Kaylee, her hands fluttering as she described something he couldn't quite follow.
Kaylee was laughing, the two girls' voices twining together, and suddenly Mal felt uncommon lonely.
"Sir," Zoe said, catching his attention.
"Mmm?"
"Is everything all right?"
He blinked. "What? Sure. Shiny."
Zoe gave him a look, like there was something else she expected him to be saying, and then turned back to Inara. "More wine?"
"Don't mind if I do," Inara said, gracefully, and reached for the bottle to pour.
Mal rolled over for the hundredth time. Or at least the twentieth. He wasn't really keeping track.
Damn it.
It wouldn't be right. She was less crazy since Miranda, there was no denying that, but River wasn't a hundred percent there.
(And you are? his devil's advocate mocked. Since Serenity Valley, you think you've been altogether sane?)
She was a girl. Practically a child.
(Though anyone old enough to kill, old enough to get shot at, was old enough to fuck. Any recruit knew that.)
She deserved better. And she didn't have a whole lot of choice on this boat; she wanted some action, it was either going to be him or Jayne, and though he couldn't fault her judgement in that regard, that didn't mean she really wanted him. He was just less-bad than the alternative.
("Need you," her remembered voice said, plaintive.)
Despite himself, Mal let his hand steal down to his groin, grasping, stroking. He sucked in a ragged breath.
He didn't want to want her. Didn't want to imagine her long milky thighs spread, nest of dark curls aching for his fingers. How he would taste her, easing into her heat. How he would gentle her through the shocks of it, feasting on her desperate little noises...
Mal's head slammed into the cabin wall and the pain startled him from his reverie, away from orgasm. He withdrew his fingers, hand almost shaking. Imagining one of his crew in his bed: there was a distinct lack of honor in that, especially when the crew member in question was a reader.
Fine. If he couldn't sleep, he was getting up. Mal yanked his clothes back on and headed back up the ladder. Had to be something he could do to keep busy, other than this.
River passed him in the hall, walking fast, away from the bridge as he headed toward it.
"River --?"
"Helm is yours," she said, tightly, and kept going.
It was no better than he deserved, after what he'd done. Mal figured she'd emerge at breakfast-time, take the next shift, but she didn't.
They were mostly on autopilot; wouldn't reach Kohelet for another day or two at this speed, and no sense burning fuel to get there faster. But she didn't come out for the next meal, either. Or the next.
Mal heard Simon tapping on her door. "River?" But all she said was "leave me alone," and—looking mournful—Simon did.
Kaylee got the same treatment. Zoe, too. Jayne didn't even try.
And neither did Mal. He knew why she was hiding, and it left him with knots in his stomach he wasn't sure he'd ever untie. He'd as good as assaulted her, fantasies like that, and he deserved whatever shunning she could dish out.
It about made him sick, remembering what in his imagination he'd almost done. Knowing she had (heard? seen?) felt the whole thing. The way she'd stormed past him...
After dinner, he went back to take the helm again. Half an hour later, Inara followed him.
"Well. What brings you here?"
She didn't respond. She sat in River's chair and looked at him, silently.
Mal felt his stomach knotting again. "She tell you why she's mad at me?"
"She says you don't want her."
"What?" Mal felt pole-axed. "That ain't hardly the point. The point is—"
But Inara interrupted. "It's the point as River sees things."
Mal blew out a breath. "As River sees things. Yeah. Trouble is, I see things different."
"You think she's not capable of sustaining a relationship."
"Don't put words in my mouth," Mal retorted, without thinking.
"She's hurt because you think she's damaged."
"Isn't she?" Mal's voice was quiet, but he knew Inara heard.
There was a silence. "She is," Inara said, finally. "But not the way you seem to think."
"What way is that? Since you all know what I think without me saying." He couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice.
"She knows her own body. And her own heart."
Inara rose, and Mal looked up at her: curls cascading over green silk, a vision of grace. What he'd longed for, for so long.
"I don't think she really wants me," Mal said.
"Don't be an idiot." The fondness in her tone took the sting out of her words.
"I don't know how to be what she needs."
"Maybe you already are."
"Inara," he said, desperate. "Is this really okay?"
"You don't need my blessing," she said. He thought her voice sounded a little bit sad, but her smile seemed real as she turned and walked away.
Mal stood outside River's door, heart pounding. Nervous. No matter what Inara said, he wasn't sure what kind of reception he would get. And he wasn't sure this was a good idea. At all.
He lifted a hand, but didn't knock.
"It's open," River said, from inside. Voice quiet.
In her room he felt twice as nervous as he had before. She was sitting at the corner of her bed, arms wrapped around her knees. Protective. Reminded him of the way he'd first seen her, curled fetal inside that cold box, a million years ago.
"I'm...sorry," he said, finally, sitting at the edge of her bunk. "About last night. What I did. It—"
She lifted her head and he could see she'd been crying. "You liked it."
"That I did," he admitted. "But it wasn't fair."
"Because I wasn't there," River offered.
"It's about consent," he said, feeling like he was fumbling. "I shouldn't have—" His face was heating up. Damn it all, this kind of talk was not his strong suit.
"If you'd let me be there, I'd say yes to anything." She was unfolding, coltish legs beneath too flimsy a dress for his comfort.
"You don't know that," he said. Backpedaling. Stalling.
River narrowed her eyes for a moment. "What language do you think I'm speaking?"
The bafflement set him almost at ease, until she flowed into his space. "Can't figure out a way to say it that you'll understand," she said, and kissed him.
Her breasts pressed up against him; his hand threaded into her hair, and it felt like every inch of her body was pleading with him. When they broke the kiss her legs were wrapped around him, her face was flushed, and his head was spinning.
"River, baobei—" His voice cracked.
"Need you," she whispered, against his lips.
This time he kissed her, and as he did, he thought, wildly, God, Book -- wherever you are—tell me I'm not going to the special hell. Please. I can't keep saying no to her.
When he kissed her throat, her gasp reverberated through his lips. Carefully he turned, let her down onto the bed, and knelt over her for a long moment.
"I fall, o stay me," River murmured, and began unbuttoning.
He wasn't rightly sure what that meant, logically speaking, but the tone was clear enough. "Let me do that," he said, and took over from her hands.
Her body was more beautiful than he remembered, than he had imagined—and now that he was running his hands over her skin he could admit he had imagined, and his imaginings were nothing compared with this.
And when at last he slid inside her, she gasped a fevered "oh" into his ear that very nearly shattered his resolve to be gentle. "Oh," she managed, a few minutes later, convulsing around him. "This is flying."
The damnedest thing was, nobody acted any different.
"Morning," Zoe said, when he tried to sneak from River's bunk back to his own. "Coffee?"
"We gonna get leave on Kohelet?" Jayne asked, yanking a chair out to sit at it backwards next to Mal. "I could use a night on the town."
"What else is new," Zoe muttered.
"Depends," Mal said, opening his knife and slicing himself a peach. "Gonna talk to Hsiu when we land, see if he's got a line on cargo. Might take a day or so to make the arrangements."
"Then we get a night off!" Jayne sounded exultant. "We ain't been to Kohelet in a long time. There's a girl waitin' to see me."
"When are we set to land?" Zoe asked.
"Two hours, forty minutes, and eleven seconds from now," River piped up, from behind him. Quick as could be, she reached around and stole one of his peach slices, then continued toward the bridge.
"Hey!" Mal said, but he couldn't muster rancor. From across the table, Zoe glanced at him. Over her coffee cup, her eyes almost smiled.
The End